Welcome to Travel Tuesday and our last one for January. Starting in February we will have a new #TravelTuesday co-host hear at A Compass Rose. I asked you if you wanted to be involved and I was greeted with a lovely response! Thank you to all the applicants who inspire me weekly with their posts on Travel, Expat Life, and Wanderlust. I have eight lovely bloggers to share with you today who are sharing what inspires them about travel. Let me know which ones inspire you with their words and thoughts on all things travel!
Category Archives: traveltuesday
Do You Love to Write about Travel?
Do you love to write
about travel?
Is your blog focused on
the life of expat?
Do you write posts
to fuel your wanderlust?
Photo Shoot in Bavaria, Germany
As I said, the images were all taken around my tiny little town in Bavaria. There is so much visual inspiration for me to draw from. I found inspiration in the abandoned building with the red door and textured exterior. I discovered some old benches with pops of red and brown that add interest to my photos. I used the back drop of my town with a yellow building that happens to be the priest’s house. And, I used ivy to frame my model’s face. All of these images are staples of the town that I now live in and have grown to love. The blanket I used in the first picture is from one of my flea market adventures to the Tongeren, Belgium Flea Market. I love adding bits and pieces of the past into my life. I’d love it if you stopped by and checked out some of the other things that I blog about at The Rococo Roamer. Cheers!
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Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.
HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
1. Share a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!
2. Grab the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link!
3. Linkup goes live every Tuesday!
4. Hop around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Link up will be open for a few days, make sure to check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!
5. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!
6. The First Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!
Register today for the first 2014 classes
starting in February!
*Bonnie Rose Photography © 2007 – 2014 All Rights Reserved | www.bonnie-rose.co.uk
The Bridge Tea Rooms in Bradford on Avon
Welcome to the first #TravelTuesday of 2014 and I am so glad to have you on board! Today I wanted to share with you another one of my favourite places in the nearby town of Bradford on Avon. The Bridge Tea Rooms and Restaurant is a must stop place on your next trip to the Bath area. From the quintessential setting, to the lovely service and dining experience you will find you’ll leave wanting to come back again soon. Nestled near the river you can walk over after feeding the swans and be greeted inside by the waitstaff in traditional attire. We have chosen to sit upstairs every time we have visited the Bridge Tea Rooms and on a cold day it is lovely sitting by the fire. They have a wide selection of teas to choose from though I have to admit I love the Jane Austen blend the best! Are you coming with children? They are family friendly and have some great selections to keep the young ladies and masters content. My sons had their tea of sandwiches and fruit brought on on a three tiered plate stand and enjoyed milkshakes with their food. Make sure to leave room for dessert or perhaps come for tea and cake. For me it is reason enough to make the trip to Bradford on Avon. It is a perfect place to go before or after a stroll through town and the picturesque countryside.
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Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.
HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
1. Share a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!
2. Grab the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link!
3. Linkup goes live every Tuesday after 9 am GMT.
4. Hop around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Link up will be open for a few days, make sure to check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!
5. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!
6. The First Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!
*Self Portrait: ‘A New Year’ by Bonnie Rose Photography © 2007 – 2014 All Rights Reserved | http://www.bonnie-rose.co.uk
A Look Back at Our 2013
It is the last day of 2013 and time to take a look back over the year.
I have prepared some highlight posts through out the last twelve months
as well as a slideshow of photographs through out.
January | We had just moved to Bath, England and into our new house during the week of Christmas. January was busy with getting all unpacked and getting the kids set up with schools. Our new area is walking distance to the town of Bath as well as to the countryside. We initiated our move with the first of many country walks in 2013.
February | This became my first month of blogging every day which became a fun challenge I enjoyed up through to December. I started sharing posts about life as an expat, our travels, and photography.
- Be Smart With Your Vacation Photographs
- I Found My Smile
- Expat Love Story: Finding Love Across the Pond
- I am a TCK & an Expat
March | I found like I was finally finding my niche in the Expat and Travel Blog community and my voice for what to share on the subjects. THese are some of my most favourite posts from the month.
- Top Ten Lists for Expats with Kids
- I am My Father’s Daughter
- Weekend Letter: ‘Never Want to Leave’
- Expat Living: Highs & Lows
- Perspective of Moving for a Spouse
- Living in England During the Gulf War
April | As a Third Culture Kid who only found out about the term during her sophomore year at Uni, I really wanted to have a TCK blog presence to reach out to others. This month I wrote about being TCK issues with having to move on and the friendships you leave behind.
- TCK & Expat: 10 Tips to Keeping in Touch with Friends
- Doing the Laundry UK vs USA
- TCK: Saying Goodbye to Friends Pt. II
- TCK: Saying Goodbye to Friends Pt. I
May | I participated in a blog every day in May challenge which I found both refreshing and fun as a daily blogger. While the whole month was filled with prompts I really wanted to share some of the most favourites from May.
- The Strength in Letting Go
- Wise words from my Friend
- What I Have Learned from Harry Potter
- Hair Growth Myths & Growing Long Hair
- My Blog Archive Faves from 2005 – 2013
- Overcoming Klonopin
- TCK & Expat: Sorry I’m Not Sorry
June | This month I got really honest and truthful in sharing myself and experiences as an expat. It was a really refreshing month to be able to just talk to my readers and connect with people I had never met. I had so many correspondence this month with people who felt uplifted and no longer alone. This solidified my reason for blogging.
- Photography and the Lies I Believed
- Marriage, In-Laws, and Cross Cultural Issues
- Finding Happiness when Restlessness Strikes
- Expat: Schools UK vs USA
July | July was a busy month as we were preparing for our vacation to Wales. There were lot of self portraits and travel stories shared but the following posts were some of the most popular.
- How to take your Family Portraits
- Expat Diaries: The Cost of Moving
- What Vacation Photos Say about my Family
August | This month my husband and I renewed our vows on our 10th Wedding Anniversary. To celebrate I had many guest bloggers sharing with posts for Love Week. These were wonderfully written and my favourites to share. I also enjoyed these posts:
- My 10th Wedding Anniversary
- The Story of How He Died
- Parenting: 5 Things I Have Learned
- My Favourite Things to do in Wales
September | This was another blog every day month challenge with prompts which helped get my posts out there about not using Shampoo and when I spent time in an Italian Jail. The weekends I focused on a new series entitled the War on Girls.
- The War on Girls: Education & Bloggers
- The War on Girls: Missrepresentation
- No-Poo: I Broke up with my Shampoo & Conditioner
- The War on Girls: Battle of Body Image
- My Night in an Italian Jail
October | I continued my War on Girls series on the weekends which became quite popular and did a lot of reflection and looking back as a TCK and as an expat.
- War on Girls: All I Need is Love
- War on Girls: Poetry Slam
- My Life as a Military Brat
- Revisiting the Peter Pan Statue 23 Yrs Later
- My Expat Life: 860 Days Later
November | November is a busy month for us with two birthdays, Bonfire Night, and Thanksgiving. There was a lot going on at ACR and here are some of the posts to prove it.
- Expat Life: Thanksgiving
- Live More Simply
- Five Steps to Improve Your Photography
- Pinterest Place Pins for Expat & Travel Bloggers
- My 31st Birthday
- The War on Girls: In-dependant
December | With the Holidays the blogging every day slowed down as I focused on my family. There were still some top highlights to end out the year.
- 8 Tips for Taking Family Photos on Vacation
- Photography: Camera vs. Knowledge
- Traveling With Your Kids
- 1 Year Anniversary in Bath
CHECK OUT OUR 2013 IN SLIDESHOW!
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Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.
HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
1. Share a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!
2. Grab the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link!
3. Linkup goes live every Tuesday after 9 am GMT.
4. Hop around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Link up will be open for a few days, make sure to check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!
5. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!
6. The First Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!
Check back next week for the next edition of #TravelTuesday and the first one in 2014!
* Photography belongs to Bonnie Rose Photography © 2007 – 2013 All Rights Reserved | www.bonnie-rose.co.uk
Traveling with your Kids
When it comes to traveling with my children, I like to say that I have it down to a science. But really there is an art to traveling with your kids. With so many preparing to travel with their families for the holidays I have prepared a list of tips for traveling with your kids.
1. Be Prepared | This does not mean to start preparing the night before you travel. While I can pack my own suitcase in this fashion, when it comes to traveling with your kids you want to begin much sooner than hours before. Also make sure to talk to your children up to the day of your departure. When your kids know what to expect and can be prepared they will be easier to travel with during your trip. Keep things light and exciting.
2. Create a To Do List | Lists help you to get the ball rolling, to make sure you do not forget anything, and to even help get your kids excited about the adventure of travel! You can even get them involved with packing their bags.
3. Suitcase Ready | Have their suitcase ready to go first. Make sure it is going to be easy enough to travel with alongside your other bags. Is your child old enough to carry their own suitcase? Will they have trouble rolling it through the airport? The last thing you want to do, is to be stressed out because you are having to drag or carry more suitcases than you had planned. Give it a test go in the house. Also make sure to have everything labeled and ready to go. You can put a name and address card inside the suitcase as well as the luggage tag.
4. In Case of Emergencies, Carry On | The carry on bag for your child/ren is just as important as their luggage. You need to plan in case their suitcase becomes lost and for emergencies that could happen in transit to your final destination. I also suggest getting your child a rolling backpack or a portable luggage cart that they can attach their bag too. This makes it easy to transport and one less bag you will have to carry. Things to think about having on the carry on are:
- Contact details. Both for members within the traveling party and for your final destination. In case someone gets lost it is always good to have this information with your child.
- Change of clothes. In case of an accident, a mess, or having a missing suitcase. Better to be safe than sorry.
- Prescriptions and bandaids. Anything you can think of that your child might need, make sure to keep it in ziplock bag easily to be found in the bag.
- Reusable water bottle. Easily to be refilled and to help keep your child hydrated.
- Busy Items. Things to keep your child preoccupied. Books, notebook, pencils, game, etc. If they will need spare batteries or a charger, keep it near by.
5. Snacks | Never rely on food being available when you travel. Always bring your own provisions and think about what kind of food will be best suited for your children and for the journey. Empty water bottles can be filled up once inside the airport.
7. Important documents | Make sure you have all the important documents you will need and have them in one secure but easy to get to place. Have a determined location for where to put the boarding passes and passports when you do not need at hand.
8. Plan for Fun | Traveling can be stressful but it can also be a fun adventure. When you plan for fun you can ease of the stress and tension of different situations that can arise. You never know if there will be a delay, so plan for one just in case. I recommend making up a ‘Travel Hunt’ of things they can find in an airport, even from the waiting area at the gate. Better yet make it a fun bingo game that can be played more than once. Bring along special goodies like books or games that the kids have not seen prior to the trip. The added bonus of having a new item to enjoy will help kids see traveling as fun. In preparation look up your travel areas to see if the are kids play areas they will have access too.
9. Patience | Be ready to teach a lesson in patience. More than likely there will be time spent waiting, whether that be in a queue (line) or at the gate. Use this time to teach your children the value of patience and things they can look forward to when the waiting is over. Do not go through all your fun goodies and food in first hour. Block things out and use the power of anticipation and talking about things to come to help the time pass.
10. Take a Moment | It might happen. Someone might get really stressed out. Someone else may have a melt down because they are tired. A situation might arise that will make you all scream ‘are we there yet?’. Know before hand that this will happen and be ready to take a moment to regroup and refocus with your family. You might even decide to have a special key word that you guys can say to let the other family members know when things are becoming a little too much.
Q: These are my ten tips for traveling with your kids. What tips do you have for traveling with your family?
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Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.
HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
1. Share a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!
2. Grab the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link! 😉
3. Linkup goes live every Tuesday after 9 am GMT.
4. Hop around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Link up will be open for a few days, make sure to check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!
5. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!
6. The First Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!
An Autumn Country Walk
Welcome to Travel Tuesday with Bonnie here at A Compass Rose. As we have just under two weeks left of Autumn I wanted to take you on a trip to England with me to view some of the picturesque views outside of the city of Bath. While it may be getting much colder, we donned our coats, hats, and scarves and wellies too. What could be more perfect than stopping halfway on top of the hillside to enjoy a warm mug of tea while looking down on the towns below? It was a beautiful weekend and I have prepared a lovely picture journey, so that you can join us vicariously through this post. Do not forget to link up with your travel, expat, and wanderlust posts below!
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Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.