What I Loved in July

There's a meme on the internet going around that has the year with January, February, and March stretched really far out and then just August. I don't know how it's back to school time already. Not that I go back to school, just that I have to fight with the school traffic.. Literally day one of back-to-school and I ended up stuck behind a school bus, while worrying about whether or not I'd make it to the gas station before running out of gas. Don't worry, I made it. With a little less than half a gallon of gas to spare. (just typing that sentence gave me anxiety.) Anywhoodles, here's what I loved in July!

This post contains affiliate links, that means if you make a purchase through one of these links, I receive a small commission at no cost to you.

These packing cubes -- guys this was a game. changer. I've been carrying the same gigantic Vera Bradley duffel bag everywhere since I got it as a high school graduation present. I recently became a member of the four wheel spinny suitcase family, and that's also a game changer you guys. But these packing cubes were so great for Mexico. Not only was I able to fit everything in the suitcase, but I also didn't have clothes strewn everywhere over the hotel room. I took out whatever I wanted to wear, put my dirty clothes in the laundry bags, and so packing at the END of the trip was a breeze too!

KINDLE WATER PROOF PAPER WHITE -- you guys. I loaded this thing up with books from the library (using the Libby App, you guys should really check to see if your library uses it. I can literally check out kindle and audio books from an app on my phone, sync to my kindle, and I'm in business.) Anyways. I loaded this thing up with books for the plane and the beach before heading out on our trip. The LAST DAY of the trip, we were drinking & reading by the pool. The ground was SO hot. It was SO hot outside. So we're about to get back in the pool (WHICH WAS ALSO SO. HOT.) and I'm like "oh, my kindle is water proof so I can sit it next to the pool and it'll be fine." I forgot how hot the ground was, so my feet are burning, I'm trying to get to the edge of the pool to set my towel & kindle down AND I THREW IT INTO THE POOL ON ACCIDENT. It went all the way to the bottom of the ledge you sit on. I swear everyone around the pool stopped what they were doing and watched in slow motion. I laughed it off saying "I guess we're about to find out if it's really water proof!" While actually panicking because what if it's not? I didn't even lose my page. Here we are almost a week later and it's still juuuuuuust fine. So, wholeheartedly recommend the water proof version.

My new Teva sandals -- I wanted to be a Chaco person very badly. So badly that I've tried THREE different pairs of their shoes (thought maybe mixing up styles I would find some that didn't hurt oh so bad.) The final straw was a couple weekends ago when I tore my feet APART with the ones I wore to the dog beach. I honestly think I'll have scars from the blisters. They just don't fit my feet. So I went back to my OGs, the Tevas. Back when everyone was having a sale to compete with Amazon & Nordstrom, I searched HIGH AND LOW because I found one pattern I just loved but it was only in my size ONE place and they were full price. I could have gotten like 20% cash back on ebates (they wanted a piece of the madness too) I finally settled for a different pattern, because Academy had them for 65% off. I couldn't say no to that. I even got cashback from that purchase. I've worn them almost every day for the past three weeks you guys. Even when they're not quite the shoe for my outfit. I freaking LOVE them. I'm fully on the Teva bandwagon now.

What about y'all? What did you love in July? Do you think the four wheel spinny suitcase or the packing cubes are the best travel improvement since the wheel? Or is there something else I'm missing out on in my travels?

CANCUN

Hello friends. I have the post vacation blues. Last week we went to Cancun for a long girls weekend. We stayed at an all inclusive resort and now I don't think I'll be able to go to the beach without a cabana boy to bring me drinks and snacks. It really was the best. We had these matching hats and they were a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge hit you guys. People really loved them, we all took artsy instagram model pictures of us looking out over the ocean from the daybed with a drink in our hands. Coming home and having to make my own meals and pay for things was really tough... 

Without further ado, here are some photo highlights from our trip!

I might write a whole series of posts, or maybe this will be it. We may never know! We had such a blast though, I'm already ready to go back. 

Kasey at The Bar: Old Smoky Moonshine

So a couple weeks ago I turned old, I refuse to accept I was old, so I did what any responsible adult would do, I went moonshine tasting obviously. 

So as soon as we walked up to this place, we knew it was going to be good. There were boys playing banjos. Mind you I even walked past a Margaritaville to get to this place. First of all, I'm totally on board with the sass talking bar tenders in overalls. Totally completes the experience. SECOND OF ALL all the moonshine shots. 

So you walk in this place, get sassed by the bartender, then immediately start taking little half shots of all the moonshine. You don't have to take them all, but it sure is more fun that way... I have to say, I did skip the egg nog one, because I know my limits, and egg nog/milk based booze doesn't sit well with me. My favorite was definitely the apple pie one, with a really close second being the cherries that were soaked in white lightning. YUM.

So, if you're ever up in Pigeon Forge, I would definitely recommend stopping in at Ole Smoky and trying all the moonshines. We couldn't settle on one to buy though, so instead we went outside and listened to banjo music while rocking in the rocking chairs. We could not have had better weather if we had drawn it up ourselves. Are you a moonshine fan? Are there other moonshine distilleries I should go to? 

Straight Floatin' On A Boat On the Deep Blue Sea

Okay. For someone who gets super motion sick, I really love boats y'all. When we were down in Naples (Florida, not Italy sadly...) we went out on the Sweet Liberty Boat tour with some super knowledgeable folks. We learned things like bobcats can swim and there are like twenty zillion types of palm trees. I also took an unreasonable amount of pictures. So prepaaaaare for a photo dump.

I developed a little bit of an obsession with the sea foam. Like I took that picture above probably 65 times. (also, my photography strategy is "take a million pictures, odds are one will be decent) So on this boat tour we rode around on a catamaran for about an hour, even doing only sails when we got out into the ocean! It was too cool y'all. Then we stopped at this place called Keewaydin Island. There will probably be a second Keewaydin Island post. Here are some of my favorites though! 

The sky was so so crystal clear and bright blue that day that I could not get enough of it. I wanted to make sure that all of my pictures featured the sky somehow. I mean, how could you not? 

This dude wasn't even a little bit afraid of me. I was probably two feet away from him when he decided he wanted to fly off. So obviously we're friends, I named him Stan.

That's our boat! We had a fearless captain + crew. No one thought my Gilligan's Island jokes were funny. IT WAS A THREE HOUR CRUISE. THAT'S WHAT GILLIGAN THOUGHT! There were no issues, I didn't have to make a coconut phone, so I was kinda bummed about that one. 

Okay, so I wanted to end with this one. But then I forgot about my awesome Instagram from the boat. I can't skip this. OBVIOUSLY I had to pretend to be like Jack. KING OF THE WOOOORLD! Please disregard the fact that I could be related to a tomato. I swear I had on sunscreen. Lots of it. I ALWAYS do. Apparently we're closer to the sun down there....

I'm the king of the world on a boat like Leo ;; if you're on the shore --then you're sure not me-oh ⛵️

A photo posted by Kasey Decker (@kdsmoove) on May 3, 2015 at 8:50am PDT

What I Carry On

I received Neutrogena® Naturals Purifying Makeup Remover Cleansing Wipes from influenster in return for my review, but all opinions are completely my own. 

So, I'm making this weekend a long one. I'm actually at the beach while you're reading this. I live less than 6 hours from a beach, have access to my parents beach house, but I haven't been to the beach since TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT. So I earned it. Anyways, we're headed down to Naples, FL, so we're flying. This title might be misleading, because most times I refuse to check a bag at all, but I want to tell you what I gotta have in my purse/backpack/carry on that's not stored above my head. They're two very different bags, obviously. 

Here's a quick rundown: a bag with all of my necessities (deodorant, toothbrush, face wipes, sunscreen, dry shampoo, sunscreen, headphones, you name it, it's probably in that cute little bag from when TOMS worked with Target + no one had a meltdown.) Minus the bear, books (at least 3, because I have a problem. Even though they're heavier than an e-reader, the batteries don't die...) snacks, sunglasses, Spark (PS Jen gave me those cute Spark samples, keep an eye out for a full post about them next week!!), and a reusable water bottle (because I will die of dehydration before I pay airport prices for a bottle of water)! *not pictured: iPhone because guess what was used to take these pictures?*

The jury is still out on whether or not I'll get that apple sauce through airport security though. I mean, I guess you'll already know since I'm sure I'll be tweeting about it. Anyways, when I got the influenster vox box e-mail about those Neutrogena® Naturals Purifying Makeup Remover Cleansing Wipes, I was pretty pumped. First of all, I am super lazy when it comes to face washing, so anything I can do to take a step out of the process, I'm totally on board with. Second of all, they're raising awareness about how much water you can save by using the face wipes instead of running your sink (spoiler alert, it's in the GALLONS.) I did the whole #WipeForWater challenge, starting with three days of only using the wipes -- they're so much better than washing my face in the sink, since I always make a mess I'm saving water washing my face + cleaning up after washing my face. 

Minus the bear is my partner in crime, in case you didn't already know that about me. He goes everywhere with me + combined with a grown up beverage helps me deal with my flight related anxiety. Plus, check out how cool he is. So, that's it! That's what I gots ta have within reach when I'm on a plane, what's in your carry on? Have you tried the Neutrogena® Naturals Purifying Makeup Remover Cleansing Wipes? 

Wanderlust Wishlist

GUYS. It's no secret that I have been bitten by the Wanderlust bug + that I love a good link up + low + behold I found one that combines the two! (by found I mean Maddie found my blog + told me about her link up + obviously I loved it.) The prompt for April was: the most memorable place you've traveled + why. I though HELLO EUROPE because it was my first ever real adventure and I did it all. by. myself. I feel like I've hammered that into y'all enough lately so I thought I would pick places I want to travel now that I've started.

FIRST OF ALL. This list will probably get longer rather than shorter. I assume that you can take this list + my wanderlust pinterest board as my still-not-conclusive-list-of-adventures

• Tulips in Amsterdam
• Meet elephants in India AND Africa
• Yacht Week
• Versailles gardens in the summer, really most of France in the summer..
• Machu Picchu
• San Fermín Festival in Spain
• 2018 World Cup
• 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro 
• Oktoberfest in Munich
• Mardi Gras in New Orleans
• Carnival in Brazil
• Thailand.
• Australia.
• New Zealand. 
• Stay in a tree house in Costa Rica
• The Greek Isles
• Barcelona
• Everywhere on this list (maybe my own boozy tour of Europe in general....)
• Turks + Caicos
• Ireland. all of it. 
• Scotland. 
• The Muggle Tour in London.

That's just a start. Let's be honest. I would live out of my suitcase for the rest of my life if it meant I got to see everything. Where do you want to go?

5 Reasons You Should Go On An EF College Break Tour

**update** First of all, thanks so much everyone for reading and appreciating my honest words. We did so well that EF not only cancelled my referral code, but took away all of the credits I had earned from actual people I knew and this post. They even updated their terms of service. I see that while I was trying to figure out a solution, someone else was sending their referral code, which apparently hasn't been cancelled, so I can't earn credit for my opinion, but someone can use my opinions to make money off of, real cool EF. real cool. I'm going to leave this up, because I genuinely enjoyed the trip, and you know, apparently still want them to make money off of my honest opinion. More so because I do want there to be an unbiased, very much so not paid for review of the trip. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, but I can no longer provide my referral code. For what it's worth, they never contacted me regarding this post, asking to take it down or anything, because it's clearly driving people to take the trips, they didn't tell me they were cancelling my code, and they took away what I had already generated. **

Okay, up front. I was zero percent compensated by EF College Break for this. I am more than willing to share my referral code with anyone who wants to book a trip (I'm not going to include it in this post because I have a feeling it's against the rules I agreed to when I booked my first trip. side note, does anyone ever actually read the "terms + conditions" or do we all just agree? Do you ever wonder if we're like, unknowingly signing over our first born because we didn't want to read them?)

ANYWAYS. When I first stumbled upon EF College Break, through a Facebook ad of all places, I googled the crap out of it. I couldn't find a single trip review that wasn't on their blog. Not that I don't buy those opinions, just that it seemed weird that nothing was on the regular Internet, you know? Positive or negative. Then I vowed that I would blog the living daylights out of my trip so the Internet would know. It's my duty, right? So this is what I got out of my trip + why I will absolutely be going again. 

I 100% stole this picture from facebook. please don't sue me.....

Traveling Solo for maybe just the flight over // I didn't have anyone to travel Europe with me. When I booked the trip I was in a bad place + just needed anything to look forward to. I read all of the posts on their blog about "50% of our travelers sign up alone, 0% travel alone." I thought that was the corniest thing I had ever heard, until I got off the plane in Amsterdam. I literally made friends when I found the people waiting for the bus. That's it. Granted, I can talk to a wall, but I didn't feel like I was forcing anything + I was so pumped to make new friends. We even still chit chat on Facebook today (hey guys, glad you're reading this!) about how we're going to try to go on more trips. I think it helps that we all obviously had that wanderlust gene. 

BOAT TOURS IN AMSTERDAM

Fantastic day-to-day events // To be honest, I wouldn't have known where to begin if I was planning the entire trip by myself. I made a list of things that I absolutely had to see, then followed the planned excursions + optional add on adventures. I could not have possibly found the tour guides that we had on my own. From what I understand, EF is really serious about the people that they hire, and they're great about it. I've talked about our tour guide in London (remember? "what the front door?!"). We had equally fantastic tour guides in every city. Super knowledgable, fun, + not afraid to go off the beaten path. They were great. Honestly. I couldn't say enough nice things about all of our guides. I never once felt like I was drudging through a history class with a monotone professor who lived with the dinosaurs. 

Monthly payments for the win // Oh, you have three grand to drop on a trip today? Well, good for you, want to take me too? I know I didn't have a cool couple grand laying around when I decided to go. I did make a bigger down payment (because last year I didn't owe the IRS money...) then I had totally manageable monthly payments. So I paid off my trip month by month rather than magically being good at money management. It's super empowering to be able to pay something like that off, by the way. It's a steal too. My entire trip was less than I would have paid for a flight to Amsterdam and back. 

this has nothing to do with our tour director because I didn't plan this post while I was there so my photos don't reflect it.

The Tour Directors are the bomb.com // Along the trip we crossed paths with a couple other tour directors, obviously none of them were as kickass as ours (his name was Adam. he's fantastic! I would take a tour 100% just because he's the director.) They are amazing. Just like with the tour guides, they are super selective + only hire the best of the best. I'm sure that if we had a lame tour director who wasn't all about, well I don't know anything but us having a kick ass trip, we wouldn't have had a good trip. Adam wanted to make sure we loved it + had a blast + I don't think we could have had a better director if we tried. 

BECAUSE YOU WANT TO TRAVEL + YOU NEED TO TRAVEL // I have the bug. I have the wanderlust bug bad y'all. I want to go again yesterday. Obviously since I've blogged about wanderlust at least once a week since I've been back. I bet you're tired of hearing it. I wouldn't have been able to realize that dream without the folks at EF + so I cannot say enough good things about the trip. They recently bumped the max age to 27 -- so GO! OH BETTER -- LET'S PICK A TRIP + GO TOGETHER! 

Have I convinced you yet? Do you want to talk about it more? You should totally shoot me an email or stalk me on any other social media outlet (you can see some of my favorite pictures on the instagram machine...) Have you picked out a trip yet? I'm daydreaming of Greek Isles or Thailand or you know, a casual month in Australia + New Zealand. Again. 100%. EF didn't ask me to write this (guys they didn't even pick my pictures on insta to regram, that kinda made my inner blogger sad. I thought I instagrammed awesome pictures. #kaseygoestoeurope.) I just honestly think it was the best decision I have ever made. Hands down. Are you ready to go on an adventure with me?

ALSO. Did you miss my Europe posts? Catch up here:
London
Paris one || two || three
Amsterdam

Darling, Let's Be Adventurers.

Back. To. Back. Write or Die prompts made just for this pretty little princess right here. I have to be honest. Taking that trip to Europe was the biggest leap of faith + best life choice I have ever made.

The only thing that I didn't really think would happen, is my insatiable need to go again. I could live out of a suitcase if I could just travel the world. Sometimes I think maybe I could get over my anxiety with flying enough to be a flight attendant so I could go all of those places and get paid for it. I just don't know if I actually could do that. I keep waiting for that e-mail that says "Kasey. Your blog is fantastic. We love the pictures you took on your last Europe trip. We're a company that puts together all inclusive trips + we would love to send you on one anywhere in the world as long as you promise to take pictures of it + blog about the experience. Get packing!" (hey, it worked for classpass...)

They say travel is the only thing you can spend money on that makes you richer, I believe that wholeheartedly. I'm not worried about paying off my student loans any time soon. I only want to pay off my credit cards so that I can travel. I could leave tomorrow guys. I plan on exploring closer to me this summer. Trips to Naples (Florida, not Italy, sadly.) and Charleston and who knows where else. 

Where do you want to go? PS! Don't forget to linkup your favorite baseball memory tomorrow! OH MAN am I pumped for that!! 

Kasey Goes To Europe!!!

OH MY GOSH Y'ALL. IT'S HERE. I'm leaving for Europe today. I may be on the way already, depending on what time you're reading it. I have been going back and forth on what to do while I'm gone, so that y'all don't forget all about me! I mean, obviously you're all going to keep up with my adventures on the instagram right? I've decided I'll be using my own hashtag, because I'm a little obnoxious but also I love hashtags. How cool is it to see all of your pictures in one place? see my wine habit under #lemmewineaboutit. Anyways. Here's my plan: 

guest posts // first of all, I have some megababes who totally stepped up to the plate [see what I did there? y'all. I'm hilarious.] so those posts will be spattered about.

did I mention social media? // keep up with me on instagram + twitter. but probably mostly instagram more than anything. I may break the whole "one instagram per day" thing. sorry not sorry. also #kaseygoestoeurope !

The most important piece of information here, is that while I'm going to be pretty MIA here in blogland, I love all of you! I'll be busy falling in love with Europe. Insert all the heart eye emojis here.  Anything I have to see?

Wanderlust :: Ireland

Today's prompt for Blog Every [Week]Day in September is : If you could drop everything and get on a plane for a two week vacation right now, where would you go and why?

I can say this with zero hesitation or thought, Ireland. Hands down. Nowhere else comes close. I've wanted to travel to Ireland for as long as I can remember. I have family from there, as the lady at the DMV told me, I have a good Irish name, plus green is my favorite color. These are not all the reasons I want to go, it's hard to explain, but I feel like I need to go. My goal is to get there before my 29th birthday. Or for my 29th birthday, but that would be frigid.

image from here

Cliffs of Moher // This list was going to be places that aren't already on everyone's list, but these cliffs have to be on the list. Pictures are breathtaking, so I can't even imagine what they must be like in real life. Obviously I have to see them in person.

Leap Castle // I may hate horror movies, but I'm a little more than obsessed with ghosts and stories about places being haunted. This is rumored to be the most haunted of all of the fancy castles in Ireland.

image from trip advisor 

The Titanic Museum in Belfast // I was obsessed with the Titanic before Kate + Leo got on it, but they definitely made me love it more, I was pretty bummed when I found out they weren't real people though. Obviously I couldn't be driving distance from the birthplace of the Titanic and not see it in person.

ALL of the Pub Crawls // I love a good Irish pub in America. I have never felt more like an idiot then when a waitress rolled her eyes at me for ordering "Smithwicks" and saying it like it's spelled, sorry I'm not a world traveler yet lady. Anyways, you can't read a guide to traveling Ireland without a pub crawl being mentioned. There are literary ones, historical ones, I'm hoping ghost related ones. I would be a fool not to crawl around the pubs.

I would really probably need more than two weeks in Ireland, but if I could go anywhere in the world right this minute, that's where I'd go. What else do I need to add to my list of things I absolutely must see when I get to Ireland?

Also, linking up for Listed Tuesdays!