Travel Sacrifices

When it comes to travel, 2017 hasn’t been my year.

In fact, I won’t have even stepped onto a plane.

Which for someone who has “food, travel and lifestyle” stamped on her blogs business cards, I feel a bit of a fraud.

If I could have chosen, the year would have involved exploration of a lot more exciting places, some sun and exotic seas, and beautiful city breaks. However, I still wouldn’t change it for the alternative.

Because in reality the reason I’ve sacrificed travel this year is because we’ve bought a beautiful house.

We knew when we found the house of our dreams that it was out of our affordability. Instead of exploring new lands we’ve been exploring every corner of our home, making plans and starting the hard work.

Whilst most people think of travel as somewhere overseas, there are so many options to travel locally as well, especially when you’ve just moved into a lovely new area. Whether flying for 13 hours or walking down the road, travel is exactly what you make it.

We’ve made the most of weekend visitors, short trips away and galavanting around the Cornish seaside. Like the weekend I had recently with Anna and Olivia at Bluemonkey in Cawsand. Somewhere I’ve visited before,  I absolutely love it, so it was brilliant to have a girly weekend together. I may even do a slightly longer post on it as I took lots of photos and the opportunity to stay in such a beautiful holiday home is a rare one.

Then in May, Sally and I are hoping to head to Paris for our annual trip (that just happened to skip 2017…) and Adam and I have already discussed heading somwhere fun next year. That may well be an extension to the Philippines trip, or somewhere closer to home.

Either way, I’ve realised that sometimes it’s ok to sacrifice travel for bigger things in life. Prioritising what matters to you most might seem like a struggle when you’re browsing through enviable Instagram snaps of holidays here there and everywhere. However, in the bigger picture, I have so many more opportunities to see every country on my bucket list, and I will.

Where have you loved travelling this year, and what’s on the top of your travel list for 2018?

So whether you’re packing for a weekend with the girls, or cramming as much into hand luggage as you can manage, this amazing bag was gifted to me by Cabin Zero, and they’ve currently given all my readers and extra 10% off  on top of their Black Friday sale for their lightweight, perfectly cabin sized luggage with the code CZALICEBAYFIELD.

Thanks for this post also to Olivia for the gorgeous photos!

***The link is affiliate, and although this post was a collaboration, all thoughts and opinions are of course my own***