Travel Diaries | Lagos, Sintra, Lisbon | Portugal

Last year I got to explore some pretty gorgeous places around the United States with my wonderful friend, April, and while sitting in a coffee shop this past winter we started to dream of more places to explore and visit! Since we did so much traveling within the country, we figured it was about time to grab our passports and explore somewhere new. After an overwhelming amount of ideas, we finally decided to spend our time exploring Portugal!!

With only a week, we had to try and narrow down our list of places we wanted to see so we decided to focus on southern and central Portugal. After flying in to Lisbon, we got our adorable and tiny rental car (Chip, because what else would you name a tiny mint green Fiat) and headed south to the coast! Our first couple days were spent leisurely wandering around Lagos and Luz! These charming coastal towns were so laid back and easy to explore.

Then after a quick trip out to Sagres to see the Fortaleza de Sagres and Cabo de Sao Vicente, we loaded up Chip and headed back up north to central Portugal and my favorite of our trip, Sintra!!

I thought driving around on the super narrow roads was fun in southern Portugal, but in Sintra and neighboring towns like Cascais took that to a whole new level! You'll see below how the houses open up right to the one lane cobblestone streets and having them built on giant hills just added a little extra challenge to driving and parking :)

After exploring the coast, palaces, and oodles of character and charm of Sintra we headed to our last city, Lisbon!! Being in the bigger city was a fun change of pace for our last couple of days and the hills of Lisbon gave us plenty of a workout as we walked around the different neighborhoods.

If you get the chance I would highly recommend taking a trip to Portugal!! As you can see, the bright colorful buildings with the never ending variety of tiles, patterns, colors, character, and charm are so fun to wander around. And having beautiful beaches and relaxing breezes through the palm trees doesn't hurt either ;) I really thought that Portugal was the perfect combination of a tropical vacation and old European charm and character. While there are SO many places I want to see yet, I hope to get back to Portugal again someday!

Travel Diaries | Glacier National Park, Montana

I feel like I'm a broken record on this, but I really love to travel and especially in mountains!! I don't know what it is, but there's just something so special about the rugged landscape and fresh air that just excites and energizes me. Sadly though on this trip we didn't really get to see that stunning rugged landscape because of the weather. Fog and rain covered the mountains last week the whole time we were there! But it's just a good excuse now to go back :) 

Travel Diaries | Utah - Salt Lake City, Wasatch Mountains, Moab

Back in June I went to visit my best friend in Salt Lake City and photograph their engagement session! Well, my super delayed flight, and their crazy doctor schedules meant we couldn't hike up into the mountains for a grand background, but we still got some beautiful and fun portraits in downtown Salt Lake City!

In 2016 it is my goal to photograph more adventurous couples that want to go off the beaten path to get epic views and backgrounds for their portraits! If you want to try something new, different, or meet at a stunning location get in touch because I do as well :) Lets go explore this beautiful country together! ....just imagine yourself in front of some of these amazing views for your portrait session

Travel Diaries: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

When your best friend asks what you're doing a certain week in January and asks if you want to go to Mexico, you say, yes! Every time. It didn't really matter where or what we were going to do. I would be leaving snow and 5 degrees for sand and 85 degrees. What do we always say? YES!

I didn't actually take that many pictures on this vacation, (very strange for me) but I thought I would share a few of them and a bit of what we did. We were staying at a resort in Puerto Vallarta and enjoying the all inclusive lifestyle. We did leave our beach chairs and margaritas behind for some snorkeling, horseback riding, canopy zip lining, hidden beaches, lots of boat rides, and whales and dolphins as we were boating to our destinations.

I am always hoping to book more destination weddings, and I hope looking through these images it might give you some inspiration to have me photograph your beach destination wedding! Just remember I'll always say YES :)