"my month without"

I have recently written a few posts about blogging, which is weird, because I never wanted to be that blogger who just talks about blogging all the time. The fact is, however, that my entire life is dedicated to blogging, either on This Battered Suitcase or for my work. Whether I’m working on my own blog, collaborating with tourism boards, running a major travel brand’s blog, consulting travel PRs on who to hire for their campaigns, or giving presentations on working with bloggers and influencers (I still can’t say that word without cringing, anyone else?), I am talking about or working with blogs seven days a week. My recent post, When Did Travel Blogging Get So Boring? really hit a nerve, and many people came forward to say that they felt the same way.

Because seriously? If I hear one more person say, “It’s just about posting good content and using the right hashtags,” when giving advice about Instagram, I’m going to… sit behind my laptop and quietly seethe. NO. IT’S NOT JUST THAT. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE. It’s complicated sometimes, it’s frustrating sometimes, and, most of all, it takes a lot of work.

So I decided to write this post: every single thing I know about Instagram. And yes, this is all going to be my subjective advice, my personal opinions, and so on. But what I can tell you is this: a lot of what happens on Instagram is some straight up bullshit, and trust me, you’re not imagining things.

Ready? Grab your glass of wine and let’s do this.

Recently, I pulled back a bit to take a look at this blog, and where I’d like to take it. As I recently went down to part-time to focus on this as a possible business, it was necessary for me to outline what I wanted for the future of This Battered Suitcase, and for my career. I started going through my archives. I started looking at the posts that I loved writing the most. I started looking at the posts that readers loved reading the most. And it hit me: if I keep accepting all of these trips, and if I keep chasing SEO stats, my blog might grow, yes. But isn’t my blog also going to get really fucking boring?

I have a lot of memories of London from before I lived here. In one, I’m wearing Spice Girl shoes, you know, those platform trainers that all of us wore in 1997. I had bought them on Oxford Street, at Miss Selfridges, my new favourite store. It was my second time in England; my very first visit, in fact my first visit to another continent, was to London and Windsor for a Christmas holiday with my family only six months before. My sister and I had gone to see Spice World in Convent Garden that holiday, and let me tell you – the Spice Girls were a big deal in London at the time. Anyway, in this memory, I’m on the tube, wearing my Spice Girls shoes, being very thirteen, when I stepped on a woman’s foot.

“Watch it!” she hissed at me, and I remember thinking she was extra scary because she had a British accent.

“I really don’t want to live in London,” I remember thinking. But oh, what a decade or two can change…

I almost never do these kinds of review posts – I’m always so impressed with bloggers who manage to do monthly round-ups. I often think how great it would be to do the same, and that it would keep me motivated and probably make me post more, but then I remember how lazy I am and laugh. It seems like every blogger has already done a review of their 2016, and I don’t even know who reads these kinds of things, but hey, I just had a fantastic breakfast at Falafel House (fellow Winnipeggers, you know what I’m talking about… I always get the corned beef hash and a glass of chocolate milk), two cups of coffee, and nobody else is home, so I thought I’d use these couple of hours to do something semi-productive. Usually I’d just be binge-watching Forensic Files, so I’m going to count this as a win.

I originally thought about organising this post by the trips I’ve taken this year, but my life is more than just my travels, and this blog is slowly encompassing more than travelling, so I’ve decided to organise it month by month.

Without further ado, here’s my year in review. No, I did not mean to rhyme that.

“How are you?”

It’s a seemingly innocent question, and one that, unless you know the person really well, always comes with the same answer.

“I’m good, thanks, how are you?”

Or, perhaps, if you’re having a great week (or you’ve run into an ex), you tweak the answer slightly.

“I’m really good, thanks!” or even “I’m great, thank you.”

Or maybe, if you live in London, or NYC, or Toronto, or just about any other big city in the world, or probably even some smaller cities, too, or perhaps even the countryside, or I guess just everyone I speak to these days, you say this:

“I’m good thanks, super busy,” or “Yeah, good, but really busy,” or “Good, thanks, but so busy I don’t remember the last time I slept for longer than four hours and my back always hurts and sometimes I forget if I’ve eaten lunch so let’s just stand here and laugh for a little while so I can forget about my ever-growing list of things to do and all those unanswered emails.”

OK, so maybe that last one is a slight exaggeration. But over the last few years, I’ve heard myself give some variation of that answer to different people, whether they’re friends, acquaintances, coworkers, or someone in between. I’ve also written about it a lot on this blog. When did I get so obsessed with being so busy?

These “what to wear” posts are some of my favourite to put together – as much as I love fashion in London, there’s something about the clothes I wear when I travel. As mentioned in previous posts, I love to mix my clothes from home with pieces I pick up on the road, whether that’s clothing, jewellery, bags, or shoes. I often form a sentimental attachment to the clothes I wear when I travel; there’s no way I’ll ever get rid of the alpaca jumper I bought in Peru, or the colourful scarves from India, or the wooden beads I bought in Havana.

Here, then, is what to wear in Cuba.