[trip style = urban + active & adventure + sun + luxury]
I just got home from Dubai via Seattle last night and my mind is bursting with cityscapes, landscapes and wordscapes.
I'll start my full-throttle dive into Dubai Friday, but until then check out Trip Styler's Instagram for a quick photo tour.
[Photos by @tripstyler taken in Dubai as a guest of Emirates Airlines]
[trip style = any]
Publishing a Christmas gift guide has been a Trip Styler tradition since 2009. I look forward to it all year, and like Santa's head elf, I test and tinker with the finds leading up to the BIG DAY. A lot of doodads dance across my desk, but here's the distilled list of 2012's most fabulous travel trinkets.
Trip Styler's 2012 Travel Gift Guide
1/ Techtouch {aka iPhone-Ready} Gloves :: A metallic-tipped index finger and thumb make answering email or instagramming below zero tooootally possible. Cost: $7.49 for a 3pk from Target
2/ Mini Kittour Travel Bottles & Bags :: Mini Kittour's spill-proof bottles and jars transport your liquids and creams in travel-friendly sizes. I've been using these plastic and recyclable toiletry vessels for six months---literally, they are holding liquids in my toiletry case while I'm in Dubai---because they're uber-slender and air tight. Cost: Two jars from $6 + shipping from Mini Kittour
3/ 2013 Cities Calendar :: Part art, part smart, the hand-painted cities calendar is a wanderer's telescope into faraway lands. Next stop: London, Tokyo, Bangkok, Cairo and NYC---every month is a new adventure. Cost: $34 + shipping from Drake General Store
4/ Smartphone-Charging Purse {aka the Everpurse} :: Finally, a purse that keeps up with your travels. Gone are the days when your smartphone loses power right before you snap that photo of the Taj Mahal. Enter the "smart purse" {we love the Onyx Fabric Clutch} that contains a Duracell charging mat so your phone can stay juiced while you're out and about. Plug in the mat overnight, and you'll be amped for the next day of roaming. Pre-orders are being taken for a Spring 2013 delivery. Cost: $189 + shipping from Everpurse
5/ Stealthy Laptop Sleeve :: If there's no safe in your accom abroad and you don't want to carry your laptop or tablet around town, these v-neck or hoodie laptop sleeves come in very handy. Burglars will mistake your computer {read: lifeline} for a folded t-shirt, and the cotton cases are reinforced with multi-layer padding! If you're a DIY'er, talk to your grandma about a Christmas sewing project. Cost: From $39 + shipping* from Computer Apparel *shipping within the US is free for orders over $35
6/ All-Time Faves :: Travalo — a refillable, portable, spill-proof and on-the-go perfume atomizer, and Vapur — a collapsible water bottle. {Not shown above — see last year's gift guide for details}
Trip Styler Tip :: We're dishing out cool Christmas finds all month long. Look out for a KinderHop list and Travel Beauty picks!
Still stuck for ideas? Check out our past Christmas gift guides: 2010 & 2011!
[images sourced via web]
[trip style = any]
Word of the day: Moderation
Whether it's the holiday season {aka now} or you're on holiday, the temptation to indulge for a week, 10 days or a month of cookies, chocolates, cheese and cocktails is ever-present. Calorie overload!
If I haven't been diligent in my plan to eat everything in moderation for the first two days of party season or a getaway, sometimes I seem to give up and INTO these naughty Cs. I feel so deep into a caloric catastrophe it's like there's no point in "flying back to the land of wellness." So I stay and wallow in candy highs and lows. Calories win, I lose.
Yet, we always have a choice to leave the sugar shack. A-l-w-a-y-s. Just because you gave into temptation for a few days, doesn't mean there's no way out. Think of it as a blip on life's screen.
Every day is a new day. Don't wait until New Year's to get back on the healthy horse. SO WHAT if your diet consisted of candy cane ice cream, Cracker Jacks and Champagne cocktails for three days straight!
The holidays don't have to be a nutritional bust. Focus on healthy eating 85% of the week, and let yourself have a few treats in the remaining 15%, and while at parties get up close and personal with veggie plates, soda with lime and mandarin oranges.
{Leah normally pens HOTR---published the first Wednesday of every month---but this week I subbed in to write this health-focused holiday helper.}
More Healthy On The Road Eat In Technicolor The 15 Minute 54321 Workout {you can do anywhere!} Keeping Fit In Hotel Hallways The 20-min Exercise Itinerary Healthy DIY Plane Snacks Hotel Room Exercises {You can do in your underwear}
[photo by @tripstyler, shot in Vancouver and Arizona]
Pop the Champagne and string the streamers because Trip Styler just turned three years old! In a birthday celebration of MAH-JOR proportions, I leave for Dubai tomorrow on one of the world's most glam airlines, Emirates. Honestly, I cannot think of a more appropriate {read: lavish and lucky} way to celebrate a milestone.
I started dishing out daily trip style tips for aspiring jetsetters in 2009, and never thought I'd be writing a "world of thank yous" at the end of 2012. In a time when many travel publications fail and everyone wants to be a travel writer, I'm grateful you've given me the opportunity to find my captain's voice and be your official travel tester the world over.
If you asked me in university what I was going to become when I grew up---which I guess is now?---I would have said advertising executive, not travel writer, but this is where I've landed, and planting my feet in a new destination every few weeks keeps life hovering between pipe dream and poetic.
Please continue to like, share, tweet and insta-love Trip Styler, we've come a long way baby, but there's still a world of trip stylin' out there.
xoxox, Trish
[photo by and of @tripstyler]
