My goal and vision for my final project was to build an interactive travel guide. I chose this route because all semester I have ran this travel blog so I felt that it made sense to continue that theme. The type of travel guide I wanted to achieve was one that would guide readers through a process of planning a trip. I decided the best way to do this would be interactively by building a Twine so it makes readers move through a sequence of choices about their travels to make it through the planning process. Doing this in that manner helps people learn the basic steps that go into planning and booking a trip. Not only did I build this interactive travel guide on Twine, I also included a link to my old Guerilla Lit project that is about packing within the Twine so that it would also give readers insight into the packing step of planning for travel. You can find my final project, interactive travel guide Twine, by following this link:
http://philome.la/MegW54410518/interactive-travel-planning-guide.

Throughout the creation of this project I had to make plenty of creative choices while keeping in mind the purpose of this project. I started my Twine by asking the viewer for an estimated budget, as that is the first decision travelers need to decide upon when trip planning. I decided upon the budget options that I used in the Twine by basing the numbers off of the average per person vacation cost amount that I found online on the following website, https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-cost-vacation.html. After determining their budget choice, I decided to ask for a general answer on what type of trip they are looking for such as tourist based or beach oriented. I thought that was an important place to start so that I could narrow down a lot of places and focus in on just a couple options that fall under each type of vacation within the budget that the reader chose. I wanted to have a little more structure with those location options in this way because I designed this Twine to be a general learning experience for planning different types of vacations within certain budgets, not an all inclusive location picking Twine. Had I tried to give too much leeway with what location the reader could pick, I feel that the purpose of the Twine would get a little lost and it would just turn into me trying to list and describe tons of locations that are possible to go to for vacations. I did it the way I did because I wanted the focus to be more on the process of going from budget to picking a location to determining travel arrangements and hotel arrangements to finally packing for the trip, all while still keeping it interactive and giving the readers choices that affect their travel planning process steps.

My final embodies multiple digital characteristics as well. It has more obvious characteristics such as interactive, multimedia, and hypertext. However, it also has other characteristics such as nonlinear, location-based, and remixed. These ones may be a little less obvious. So within the interactive Twine, it is also nonlinear because the reader can choose different routes/options that affect their travel plans. It is, in a way, location-based as well because it is all based on travel and the readers pick different locations that can affect the way they have to travel. When the different location options and photos of places were shown in the Twine, I took images from various google searches to portray each location and get the multimedia component. I gave citation credit to the images sources in a separate document which you can find by following this link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sR01TUVoCUeSl7PFK32B_Xog6EDO6fEE-dE9HlX5SJk/edit?usp=sharing. It is also a remix because it combines this new interactive travel guide Twine I made with my old Guerilla Lit project Instagram page by incorporating it within the Twine. It makes sense to remix those and combine them in this way because the Twine is a travel guide and the Guerilla Lit Instagram page is all about packing for traveling.

When I began this project I originally thought that I would start readers off in the Guerilla Lit portion of my project then link into a Twine. However, the more I thought about it and started mapping out the process of travel planning I wanted to go through, I decided that it was the most effective to start by making the travel planning Twine and then at the end of each possible travel branch in the Twine link to the Guerilla Lit. It made more sense to go about it in that way because packing is basically the last step you take before leaving on a trip so I wanted the packing advice within the Guerilla Lit Instagram page to be linked to last in the sequence of steps in the travel guide Twine. The Guerilla Lit Instagram that focuses on packing, that is linked to directly within the Twine, can also be found own its own at https://www.instagram.com/digitalmediaupj/.

Most people that think of getting guided travel assistance think of going to a travel planner such as Lonny, who can be found by going to her web page at https://lonnysexoticvacationgetaways.com/, or Triple A. When I was thinking of this project I thought my online interactive travel guide kind of put a really cool spin on that type of travel planning assistance.

I got inspiration for this type of travel planning interactive guide from a few different places. I think it is very helpful how there are sites online that can help you find the best flight option by giving you an all inclusive list of flights running on the dates you want to travel so that you can pick the best option for you without having to go look up flights on each airlines website specifically one at a time to compare. This same type of concept is available online for hotels. I got inspiration to direct people to sites such as this by referring to sites such as Travelocity and Expedia which can be found at,
https://www.travelocity.com/ and https://www.expedia.com/, respectively. I also got inspiration from TripAdvisor, which can be found at https://www.tripadvisor.com/, for determining locations for people to go. TripAdvisor can help people determine good vacation locations to go based on things they are looking for which is some of the inspiration for why I got the idea to give people options for locations to travel within my guide. It helps to give people good ideas of places to go for people who are really starting from ground zero and are unsure of the process of picking and planning for travel in its entirety. I also have an interest in travel and vacation so that was a main reason for focusing my blog and other projects in this class around travel. However, I also found inspiration from other sources as well; such as Kiki the Blonde Abroad (her page can be found by following this link https://www.instagram.com/theblondeabroad/ ) and other travel bloggers/Instagram users.

Overall, I found the making of this final project to be very interesting and kind of fun! It was fun to create my own version of an interactive travel guide. I found that Twine was a technology I actually enjoyed learning how to use this semester so I thought it was very cool that I was able to tie together Twine with one of my favorite topics, being vacation/travel. I also thought it was cool that not only was this project new material but it was also a bigger expansion on past projects in this class such as my Guerilla Lit Instagram project and my Travel Blog.

People like to know where they came from, that’s why mapping family trees is such an important thing for some people. People have a drive to find that origination point(s). So for this blog post, I am shooting for that same type of goal. My travel blog has “ancestors” and today I am going to give you a look into my travel blog’s family tree!

When first creating my travel blog I looked for inspiration within the web pages, social media accounts, blogs, etc of fellow travelers! In doing so this made them to be my blog’s ancestors in a way.

A big player in the travel Instagram realm is Kiki-The Blonde abroad and her page can be found at https://www.instagram.com/theblondeabroad/. I looked to Kiki’s page rather often because I really enjoy her pictures and I think that she has a very well put together, travel relevant, and visually appealing Instagram page. Branching out from Kiki’s page, I then looked to see some of her inspirational ancestors. I found that her page branched to https://www.instagram.com/tbaescapes/?hl=en which is a wider version of “The Blonde Abroad.” It is an ancestor because Kiki works to promote that site through her Instagram as well. Branching from that are several more Instagram pages that could have influenced Kiki’s. Branching from Kiki’s page is another branch that going up to https://www.instagram.com/visitjordan/?hl=en and then branching further into https://www.instagram.com/thirdeyetraveller/ and
https://www.instagram.com/imsagrhamdan/. Kiki has another branch that leads to
https://www.instagram.com/blainebowen/?hl=en who is another influential travel blogger.

Another ancestor to my blog would be Adventurous Kate and her blog can be found at
https://www.adventurouskate.com/. I think that the style and tone of her blog is very interesting and good for travelers, especially ones that are new to it because she explains her journey into the traveling world. Adventurous Kate has gotten inspiration from other sources as well so that could also link to further up branches in this travel family tree. A branch from Kate would be the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.

I also got inspiration from TSA because that department is a huge player in the travel world, due to air travel especially, so TSA would make for another branch in my blog’s family tree. The TSA Instagram page was a page I linked to a lot in previous projects such as my Guerilla Lit project. The TSA Instagram can be found at https://www.instagram.com/tsa/?hl=en. The TSA Instagram page is definitely inspired to branch from the TSA webpage, which can be found at https://www.tsa.gov/ , but in a more “follow-able” form.

The travel family tree could expand into many more branches and webs that interconnect since it is such a hugely popular topic, however, I only explored these few branches since they were more significant towards the creation of my travel blog.

This week’s blog is going to be a little different than my usual very travel themed blog posts. This week I will be reflecting on a project that I had to complete for a class. The project I completed was an interactive narrative which I made using Twine. You can find and play my narrative by following this link: http://philome.la/MegW54410518/behind-the-bar-can-you-make-it-to-close

My interactive narrative is a sort of “choose your own story” type game. The setting of my narrative is at a bar and the role that the players of my narrative take on is playing the bartender character. The inspiration for this type of setting came about because I am actually a bartender myself. So I thought it could be interesting to create a “shift in the life of a bartender” type story by imagining and making up different scenarios. Even though the story/outcomes are fake and dramatized, I still thought it could be a cool take for a story that people could play.

Throughout my narrative a story line develops, however, based on the choices that the players make as they progress through the narrative the story will change and generate different outcomes. The goal when playing this interactive narrative game is to successfully make it until bar close. This was a choice I made because I wanted users to have a sort of motivation to “choose right” to try to get to the more positive endings versus the negative ones. However, it isn’t as easy as it sounds because depending on the choices you make when playing, some adverse events could happen and even cause you to “lose” because your choices led the bar to an early close.

The creation process of this narrative involved a lot of mapping out and learning to use new online tools. When making my story I wrote it down on paper first so that I could make all the connections between the choices and outcomes. After I had outlined my story, I began the online generation process by using Twine. Twine is an online tool for generating interactive stories like this. Before this project, I had actually never used or even heard of Twine before, so learning how to use it was an adventure in itself.

When I first started adding my story into Twine, I ran into my first roadblock because I didn’t know how to write the “code” (for lack of a better word) to generate the choice options to get the story to branch out into different paths and outcomes. The form and content work together because the content is a story with multiple outcomes and the form, being Twine, allows you to generate the connections and put the story into playable form. After some toying around with the website, googling, talking to a friend in the class, and two practice attempts that I ended up scrapping, I finally got the process of writing in Twine down. I had discovered that to generate the choice options you needed to use this typing sequence: [[insert text|insert text]] for each option so the story could branch out. Then to get multiple links to the same option you have to use identical text within the option brackets but to get a new branch you had to put new, different text in the brackets. The advantage of using Twine as the medium for generating this narrative was that it already kind of served as a template that would link things together for you when you used the proper typing sequence, which made the process much easier.

After writing all the paths and connections out for my story in Twine, I then published it to a file to save it. This is where I ran into my second roadblock. I was unsure how to get it from a file to an html address so that it could be linked to and found by anyone online. After some issues with that, I received assistance from my very tech savvy professor. Once that issue was resolved, I was able to publish my interactive narrative Twine online to a functioning html address website for people to access and play. So go give my narrative a try (using the link above) and see if you can make it until bar close!

As I am reflecting on this interactive narrative project I have realized that I learned a good bit through doing it and it was an interesting project. It was even pretty fun to create a story like this! It allowed for a lot of imagination use and creativity. What I will take away from this project in this class is the knowledge of Twine and how to make stories like this.

To conclude my reflection I want to make a tie between interactive narratives, life, and travel. During the process of creating my narrative I realized that, in a way, life is sort of all just your own personal, big interactive narrative. Your choices affect your own life. In the same way, travelling/planning a trip/going on vacation is also kind of your own version of an interactive real life narrative too because you have the power to CHOOSE your own destination!

Within the topic of travel, which is this blog’s focus, there are plenty of opportunities for interaction! Travel invites interaction because it allows people to connect with new people, environments, and experiences. Planning a trip requires interaction with online booking sites, other people via phone calls and other communication, and various other types of research. Typically the interactions that are achieved through traveling are gotten by internet use via computer or smart phone (etc), in person interactions, and phone calls.

There are plenty of different digital media that people in the world of travel use. People can interact using any social media such as Instagram or Snapchat. Medium such as those allow people to post pictures of their travelling experiences with different captions. Snapchat specifically also allows for interaction through Snapchat Maps where people can be shown at different locations and they can generate a compilation of Snap Stories together based on where they are. This can create a type of story that is based on people interacting on a social media platform where they may or may not even realize that they are contributing to an even bigger location based compiled story if they allow their story to be posted publicly.

There are also plenty of travel specific web pages that definitely invite user interaction! A specific example of a travel site that is often a source of interaction would be TripAdvisor which can be found at https://www.tripadvisor.com/?fid=bfca497f-6d63-4e0d-9de3-e261c44c5740. TripAdvisor is a travel website company that shows hotel and restaurant reviews, accommodation bookings, and other travel related content. TripAdvisor includes interactive travel forums and it is filled with plenty of user generated content which also contributes to its interactivity.

Interaction can be gained from users in different forms, some types generating more user interaction than others. There are layers of interactivity that gauge the amount of impact the users have on the outcome of the story as well. In the case of using TripAdvisor since it is so based on user generated content and interactivity, it would be said to have a higher amount of interactivity. It could be considered a type of emergent interactivity within the layers of interactivity because part of the “story” on TripAdvisor is created by users (such as hotel reviews for example) but then there are also other parts created by the system (such as hotel booking pages).

Interactivity, in its many forms, is everywhere… whether you realize it or not! But now you know that even travelers are engaging in forms of interactivity everyday! Whether they are researching trips, booking them, posting about them, joining in on interactive travel pages (such as review pages, etc), or even using social media…and many more things!

This week’s blog is a bit different…it’s about a Remix. I had to complete a Remix project for my writing for digital media class and for this project I basically had to take material from different sources and mash it together to make my own story! For this Remix I chose to combine photos from beach vacations with text relative to running a business to tell the story. Not two topics you would usually see in the same post/story so that’s part of what makes it a remix because it yields unexpectedness. The topic of this remix was inspired because I am interested in travel (hence I run this travel blog) so I wanted some incorporation of travel in the project which is where the beach vacation photos came into play. As for the business running interview that I used for the captions of text, I chose to use that because I knew it was different enough that I could remix it, but it was also similar enough that I could coordinate it with the pictures and make it make sense.

I chose Instagram as the platform to tell the story. Instagram made the most sense because I was able to use the photos and caption them with the text for my story in a sequence of posts. This created a selective and reflexive type of remix! It is selective because I add and subtract material in and out of it but it is also reflexive because I am taking pieces from different sources and mixing them together in order to form the remix. My remix project can be found at https://www.instagram.com/digitalmediaupj/

Creating this project was a bit challenging because it is kind of difficult and in a way uncomfortable to have to mush material like this together without actually make up the story completely on your own. It was fun in the sense that I got to do something completely different from typical college projects for other classes and it allowed for a good bit of freedom in the generation of the project.

Throughout this creation of this project, some artistic choices were made. For example, in all of the photos used there was a blue tint or color in the picture which helps to generate the calm, relaxing beach vacation effect. That was done with intention because the calming effect in the pictures contrasts with the textual captions about the business interview because running a business is typically more high stress. But the contrast works well together in the sense that it creates an interesting remix! It sort of makes you feel as though the interview with the business owner (which is what generates the story line of how to run a small business throughout the posts) is happening at a beach setting…even though that would be atypical.

This project taught me that a lot of the stories, songs, and other material you see may very well already be a remix in some form. It seems that actual creation is hard because things are always being generated from other things.

Go check out my remix by clicking the link I listed above! (Credit was given to the original sources, that I got the pictures and text from, within each post.)

Travelers see, Travelers Do! That kind of sounds like “monkey see, monkey do,” huh? Yes, that was on purpose! Why? Because it’s true! People tend to follow trends and it’s sort of like a monkey see, monkey do type thing. To follow this type of concept for example, Ariana Grande in her song “7 Rings,” which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7zg-7O1GeQ, sang “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it” which is really a motto for a lot of people when it comes to trending things. People will see something they like so they also want to get on board and do it too! But sometimes they will put their own spin on it, which is how “remixing” comes in to play. People will take an original idea, design, plan, etc and tweak it a bit or build off of it to make it what they envision. This could also be considered a form of collaboration as well since people are building off of each other’s ideas/work/designs/plans/etc. This sort of remixing also happens with travelers!!

Travelers can take others’ itineraries, plans, vacation spots, vacation apparel, travel Instagram (or other social media) captions for pictures, and many more things that they have seen online or heard from a friend, etc and remix it to make it their own thing or adventure! For example, when planning a vacation a lot of times people will look at ideas online for recommendations on what they should do while they are away at a certain location. At this point when people see the recommendations, stories of what others have done before, or other ideas the traveler can then take whatever ideas they find most appealing and make their own plans accordingly! However, when they are doing this they are basically just taking pieces from other people’s prior trips and mashing them together or remixing them to build their own trip!

Within the traveling world there isn’t anything wrong with doing this type of remixing to build your own trip based off of others’ ideas and past experiences! If anything, it is actually recommended because by heeding other people’s reviews, stories, and ideas ahead of time it gives the travelers the means to plan the best trip for them that they possibly can! So generally the remixing conventions for travelling are far more loose and accepted than what the conventions for remixing could be for other topics in comparison.

However, there are some things, such as stealing someone else’s Instagram caption for a vacation photo word for word around the same time that they originally posted it, that are less accepted. Yes, you can still remix and use other people’s captions for sure! There are A TON of repeated captions out there on Instagram. But if you are aware that you share a lot of the same followers as the person that originally posted it and it is around the same time that they posted it then you should probably try to avoid using that caption because it could yield less likes on your photo in comparison to their original. However, aside from social media travel photo caption originality, overall originality in where you travel and what you do on your trip isn’t super important. People definitely accept (and even encourage) seeing and doing repeated things in the realm of travel. Although, seeing new places and doing new things is also widely valued in the eyes of travelers as well!

So go ahead and REMIX your way to RELAXATION!!

This post is all about packing for trips! But for this post I’m going to go about it a little different. Recently I did a project for my Writing for Digital Media class and I am going to explain that project in detail in this post. Then by linking this post with my project it will help give you guys some insight on how to pack and what to/what not to pack in your suitcase! This is especially geared for air travel with carry on bags.

The project that I had to complete for my class was essentially to use a web 2.0 platform in a sort of unconventional way in order to tell a “story.” The story that I chose to tell was a how-to pack coupled with dos and don’ts of packing for air travel. I chose to use Instagram as my web platform to convey this story. I was inspired to choose this topic to be my story because I love to vacation/travel and I have experience with air travel. Also, since I run this travel blog I just thought it really made sense.

The platform I used, Instagram, and the content of my story compliment each other because I was able to use photos of packing a suitcase and things you can/can’t pack coupled with captions explaining how to pack and what to pack. Although this is an unconventional use of Instagram, since Instagram is typically used for sharing pictures of yourself/family/friends/pets/etc with captions of various sorts but I used Instagram for more of a “how-to” type story. However, even though it is unconventional, it still works to achieve the goal!

In the process of creating this project, which you can find at https://www.instagram.com/digitalmediaupj/, I found a few things interesting and a couple challenging. I thought it was interesting that I could generate a story on a platform that isn’t typically used for the type of story I put there and it still fit on that platform and was able to generate collaboration from others in the form of likes and follows. The type of collaboration that my project generated was both conscious and contributing participation. Something I found to be a little more challenging about this project was finding the balance between having my story blend in to the way the platform is typically used yet still be “misusing” the platform enough to be considered a “hack” by this project’s standards. I overcame this challenge by picking a platform that both made sense for the story and the story made sense for it while still being an abnormal type of post to see on there. Yet my “how-to”/travel packing tips Instagram was not so far out there that it didn’t make sense so overall it was a successful “hack” for this project.

Some artistic choices I made for this project include my photographs that I took, using my own carry-on suitcase and items, to post on the Instagram page. I chose to use typical items that people would recognize and I chose to take my own pictures so it would be more personal and relatable for other people who see the posts. I also chose to use hashtags in order to get my posts to spread to other areas so I could channel the posts more for people with travel interest to see. On top of the use of hashtags, I also directly tried to link people to the TSA Instagram by tagging “@tsa” in some of my captions along with writing for people to visit the online TSA webpage as well. Within my posts I also encouraged people to comment any of their own travel advice/stories/tips/etc in order to create the opportunity for even more collaboration!

This type of storytelling offers a sort of uniqueness because it is not exactly conventional. It goes about telling the story in a bit of a round-a-bout way in order to allow it to blend into different platforms. However, this type of storytelling is also very effective because it ends up getting people to participate in it even if they don’t necessarily realize it. Web 2.0 platforms, such as Instagram, used as a storytelling medium offers advantages because a lot of people use these social media platforms daily and it allows the platforms to be a very effective way of rapidly spreading your story and getting it to gain attention and participation from other web users.

A takeaway that I have gotten from this project that I will remember after this class is to pay attention more to the stories online and why they were put on certain platforms. I will also pay more attention to the types of collaboration that I and many other people participate in online in the form of social media and such. I will also pay attention to the more effective ways you can spread your stories such as hashtag use and linking to other pages.

As for the topic of my actual story told on project’s Instagram (**link to the page is shared above–Go check it out!!**), you can find many useful tips for packing within those posts. So if you are a traveler, especially a new one to air travel, go check out that page for some helpful advice on what to/what not to put in your carry-on bag and how to pack it in order to be allowed, effective, organized, and save space! On top of checking out my link, if you really need help with packing head over to the TSA website! That website has all the answers to make sure your bag is ready for take off!

You might travel in groups, pairs, or even go solo BUT even if you’re “flying solo,” are you ever really alone? No way! That probably comes as a major comfort to some and a bit creepy to others though. But what I mean by that is, in this day and age everyone is basically always connected in some way, somehow! This constant connection helps people collaborate, whether they know/realize it or not, and that collaboration can be super significant to the topic of travel!

Collaboration under the topic of travel can happen in many ways. For example, someone could be a conscious or contributing participant in collaboration by simply posting their travel photos and stories online via their social media platforms. That’s because as soon as they post their information online they are knowingly putting it out there, although they may or may not know exactly how it will get used.

There are plenty of travelers who make Instagram accounts, or other social media accounts, to share their travel stories and photos! Now when their share their information on these pages they are conscious participants in collaboration because they are knowingly doing it. However, these people can also turn into contributing participants because they don’t exactly know if or how their posts could be used in other ways. For example, on this webpage, https://expertvagabond.com/instagram-travel/, there are many traveler’s Instagram accounts listed by the blogger and this makes those Instagram users contributing participants in collaboration because they knew they were putting their stuff out there but they didn’t necessarily know it would get used in that way. There could also be unwitting participants if someone takes photos, writes stories, etc about the participant whenever they are unaware of it. All of these types of collaboration are valuable because they can benefit other travelers by showing different locations people have gone, the clothing locals wear, foods eaten, attractions available in any given location, and many more things! There are also challenges associated with travel collaboration because it could compromise people’s privacy if they are photographed off guard or other things of that nature. Any social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc can make great digital tools to make collaboration among travelers easier because they are easily accessible, convenient, and even enjoyable to use!

Other ways travelers can collaborate online would be by sharing traveling advice or packing tips! So to read more on that topic visit my blog next week! I will be talking about a project, that I’ve been working on for a class, which involves using a social media platform in an unconventional way in order to share a story about travel topics such as that!

There are a ton of web 2.0 platforms out there for people to use for anything and everything they would want to post. There is Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and many more! However, for this blog I am going to shift the focus to Instagram.

Instagram is essentially a form of social media that allows people to post photos with captions. People who use this platform must follow people and gain followers to grow their popularity and to see other people’s posts on their feed. People will caption their posts with witty captions, meaningful ones, emojis, quotes, hashtags, short phrases or sentences, or even longer paragraph based posts. Instagram is based on a double-tap to “like” and “comment” system.

Instagram is a popular platform among travelers as well, which is what makes it so important and relevant to this blog! A popular traveling Instagram icon would be “Kiki-The Blonde Abroad” and you can check her page out at https://www.instagram.com/theblondeabroad/  Her Instagram is a prime example of using Instagram for sharing amazing travel pictures and related captions. However, Kiki also manages to use her Instagram to promote things as well and share other kinds of stories.

As an Instagram user, there are some things to think about before posting your photo. Believe it or not, a lot people spend more time trying to get that perfect “candid” looking photo rather than spending their time actually being in the moment, just to get that “Insta-worthy” photo. Which leads me back to the title of this blog post. How do you know if a photo is “Insta-worthy?” Well, that question is trickier to answer than you may think. It depends the kind of Instagram page you want for yourself. Some people only will post perfect model looking posts, others just post photos important to their lives, others post photos just to throw in witty captions with them, and there are many other types of posts people can do and many variations of Instagram pages that people can create for themselves. Now, since this is a travel blog I am going to hone in on a travelers Instagram page, such as Kiki, to explain what could make a photo Insta-worthy to them.

First, the photo would need to show an aspect of what location the traveler is at such as another country or a beach somewhere or even on a cruise. Next, if the traveler, him or herself, is in the photo then before that photo would ever get posted the traveler becomes their own harshest critic of their appearance because typically they want to come across to people as model-like. A lot of times when these people even take photos with the intention of posting them, they take a bunch of pictures of the same thing to ensure that they will have options to decide from on which is the most Insta-worthy to post later.

So next time you go on a vacation or traveling, make sure you take advantage those perfect, post worthy photo opportunities so you can showcase the highlights of your adventure on your social media page! Just remember, don’t do two posts in one day on Instagram, that’s kind of a no-no on that social media platform! Happy photo hunting!

Everyone feels like life is hitting them while they’re down sometimes! I know it, you know it, everyone knows it happens sometimes. But when you start feeling that way about life, what do you do? YOU GOTTA LEARN TO RIDE THE WAVES!

Sure, when you’re getting down or frustrated about things in life it might seem like a good idea to just hop on social media and make that platform your emotional punching bag and just vent/rant on there. And sure, that is one way to go! Sometimes it might even help because friends or family that follow you on there will surely have some encouraging words to say to make you feel better. At the same time, some people prefer to not broadcast everything on social media all the time for everyone to see! These people, such as myself, would rather just talk to someone close to them about things going on in their life. And it is very good to have people close to you that are willing to help be an outlet for you and vice versa! But when life gets you really down or stressed, sometimes it is good to get away for a bit and maybe go on a trip to reset yourself like I wrote about in my first blog post.

SO, with that being said…WHEN LIFE’S A BEACH, RIDE THE WAVES. That has a two-fold meaning really. You can take it as when life is giving you lemons, you just have to learn how to roll with the punches and figuratively “ride the waves.” Which, yes, you should! As a person in today’s society, you have to learn to bounce back after something doesn’t go your way and try again. A quote, from https://medium.com/personal-growth/stop-trying-to-calm-the-storm-and-learn-to-surf-the-waves-5d99e875660f, says that “”You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” To me, this encapsulates a deep truth of living a good life that when the shit hits the fan, you must learn to accept what is, bring your awareness to the present, and move forward skillfully from a place of grounded intention,” which backs up what I’m saying here.

Now, the second meaning to that relates back to my first blog post. Every so often, everyone just needs a break from day to day life to reset…and what better way to do that than to go on a vacation and maybe even literally “ride the waves”?!

Going on a vacation or travelling can have major benefits for a persons mental health as well as many other positive effects. Sometimes it is really good for a person to detach, especially from social media when they are on a vacation enjoying time away and relaxing with friends and/or family. Social media can have its uses and benefits for sure! Even as I described above where some people use it as an emotional outlet. But honestly, in my opinion, when you are on vacation you should just be living life and enjoying the moments. Obviously, take pictures and post those all over the place if that’s something you like to do! Or even post nightly updates of your day to day vacation adventures if you want! But don’t spend ALL day on your smartphone while you’re on your getaway, that would totally defeat the purpose. Just find a healthy balance! It is also important to step back and not worry so much about the social media “drama” when you’re away. Trust me, your mind will feel much more at ease if you use social media as a fun, interesting outlet/inlet versus letting your feeds just be constantly polluted with negativity all the time!

So, when life’s a beach, just ride those waves off to your favorite destination! Maybe even take someone with you and just enjoy some time away!