At the start of last year our little family had never been on holiday together. Then, throughout the year, blogging brought us wonderful opportunities to travel, explore and show our daughter a little bit of the world. I hadn’t travelled much in my life until I started this blog and I would love my daughter to have a very different experience of travel to me.
Holidays give us so much joy and through new experiences we can learn so much. When I try to think of my favourite summer holiday memory, so many memories flood into my head. Different holidays were special to us for different reasons and for these varied reasons they each will hold a special place in our memories. As Baby is so young, many of those special times centred around firsts.
Our first family holiday was in Wales, we were so excited to finally go away together and we make the most of the January weather. Baby and I went swimming, we played together, we explored the local area, mummy had a cheeky trip to a spa and we found the most perfect beach in Tenby. The memories of us on that beach together will stay with me forever.
In July we had a double whammy of firsts, jam packed with memories when we went to Camp Bestival; first time camping AND first time at a family festival. It seems like it was only yesterday that we would sit on the grass and watch bands, tuck into various street food, watch the insect circus and be amazed by the giant animals that walked around the site. There was so much for us all to take in; such an incredible experience.
As we haven’t travelled much, we have always gone just as a family. This was rectified in September when we spent a weekend in Devon with our lovely friends. The house we stayed in was amazing; situated on a hill overlooking Brixham harbour. It was lovely to spend time with friends, let the children bond more and explore the local area.
Until this point all our lovely holidays had been in the UK. Then, at the start of September we headed off to France, travelling there by car (and ferry!). Baby adored France, I think largely due to going pony riding most days. She was enthralled watching Elsa sing songs and we had lots of memorable days out all over Brittany. Including spending time on a fabulous beach in St Malo, an amazing trip to the Parc Zoologique de la Bourbansais, which was situated in the grounds of a magnificent chateau and such a memorable trip to Mont Saint-Michel.
As the nights started drawing in, we were sent to Barcelona. We were hugely excited, as this was to be Baby’s first time on a plane. She was a total superstar and took it all in her stride. She adored riding the suitcase as I pulled it through the airport, taking pictures EVERYWHERE she went and enjoyed tumbling around on the astroturf on the roof top hotel garden. We had an amazing time exploring the city on foot, ate in the coolest hipster breakfast joint in the city, enjoyed a stroll through the street market, soaked in everything the zoo and aquarium had to offer and were generally stunned by the amazing architecture all around.
These are some moments which we loved most in our summer of travel love. We hope to have many more amazing travel memories this year. As a family we believe these memories can be made anywhere, so who knows where our next adventure will take us.
Disclosure: This post is an entry into the James Villas Photography and Writing competition in which we were asked to share our favourite summer holiday memories #summerlove.