Aloha from Waikiki, Hawaii

Aloha! I am in Hawaii this week and wanted to share a few photos from our first couple of days in Honolulu + Waikiki.

First things first, here are a couple of pictures of the famous Waikiki Beach…

I love that view.

I also love the view of this infinity pool along the beach…

Awesome.

We went to a luau on our first night here, and it was so much fun. We went to the Paradise Cove luau and I’d recommend it if you are interested in learning a bit about Pacific Island culture while seeing a good show by talented locals and getting dinner.

We saw hula dancers and a man climb a tree to toss down orchid flowers (He made it look so easy!)

 

Here’s everyone lined up to learn about fishing traditions…

We tried our hand at spear throwing…

…admired the plant life…

…and enjoyed the sunset!

The food has been great so far, too. I have been eating all the fish tacos. Haven’t met any here that I didn’t like!

We also tried this frozen treat, banán – a dairy-free soft serve made from local bananas and fruit that tastes a bit like frozen yogurt. Yum.

Now we are up on the north side of Oahu and excited to explore the area up here! I’ll share more photos from here later and in the mean time I’ll be posting over on instagram.

Have you been to Hawaii? What was your favorite thing to do? 🙂

 

kate

A March Day Trip to Sequoia National Park

Earlier in March, we took a day trip from to Morro Bay to Sequoia National Park. There are lots of cool things to see and do in both Sequoia and the nearby Kings Canyon National Park, but our mission was to see some of the tall sequoias in the National Forest and especially the General Sherman Tree.

My number one hot tip for journeying up to Sequoia Forest in March? Check the weather forecast first!

We were definitely caught off-guard to leave Morro Bay in the upper 60 degrees F and find ourselves in Sequoia facing this:

And this!

All the cloud/snow/fog in that photo is obscuring the mountainside – we were at an elevation of about 6,000 ft here.

We weren’t deterred. We rented some snow chains for our tires and my husband put them on. He is from Minnesota so I figured, he knows what he’s doing!

He told me afterwards he had never put snow chains on a car before, but he had put them on a lawn mower. Apparently, in Minnesota they attach snowplows to lawn mowers to clear snow in the winter! Me (from Atlanta) and the man renting the snow chains to us (from California) were both gobsmacked to hear this.

When we made it to the pull off for the trail to the General Sherman tree, the lot was sparsely populated and looked like this:

Still not deterred! We made our way to the tree in 6 inches of snow.

Worth it:

The General Sherman Tree is the biggest living tree by volume in the world – 275 feet tall, and 36 feet in diameter….

It was awe-inspiring to gaze up and take in the size of this tree surrounded by so many tall, beautiful sequoias in the forest.

We made it back down the winding mountain roads safely, turned in our snow chains, and headed on. On our way back we stopped at In-N-Out and chatted the whole way about what an odd but amazing day it had been.

This was definitely a unique experience for me and a story I think I will be retelling for many years!

p.s. – But seriously… did anyone else know that there are places where they put snow chains on lawn mowers?? I learn amazing things all the time.

 

xo

Kate

Disney Vlog + 3 Tips for Visiting in 2018

As promised, here is the vlog from our Disneyland trip plus 3 tips for visiting Disneyland in 2018!

These are the 3 things that really helped keep our day fun and efficient:

1. Disneyland App + MaxPass
2. Start Fastpasses Early
3. Rent a storage locker

I talk them through in more detail in the video starting at the 1:53 mark.

Let me know in the comments if these tips work for you or if you have any other Disney advice!

A dream is a wish your heart makes….

xo

Kate

Disneyland during Spring Break

Last week, we took my sister to Disneyland during her spring break! Wanted to share a few pictures.

Here she is in front of Aurora’s castle…

We started off the day with my favorite ride: the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout (the old Tower of Terror!)…

Got some awesome souvenirs, we all l-o-o-o-ved our Disney mouse ears – I got sparkly ones!

 

But maybe the coolest ones were these light-up Star Wars ears….

Had a good time hanging out with the Frozen crew and getting our snowfies…

And here we are with Tinkerbell (clap if you believe!)…

I’ll be back on Thursday with the vlog + my top three tips for visiting Disneyland for a day.

May the force be with you,

Kate

A #TinyHouse Tour

Happy Thursday friends! We are currently enjoying rural California, and I wanted to do a little tour of our two-week #TinyHouse AirBnb.

Tiny Homes seem to be getting more and more popular over the past few years (there is even a “Tiny House” filter on AirBnb now!), so I’m excited to see one up close.

Here’s an outside view…

…and inside….

Tiny homes, for a lot of people, are a chance to cut clutter, live more simply, and reduce impact on the environment. For others, it is a chance to be more cost efficient, or manage a smaller place in retirement, or to work on an interesting design challenge.

Here is the living room…

…kitchen area complete with a gas oven…

… and our back to back work station!

If you walk past the kitchen, you’ll past the laundry on your left (across from the bathroom and the stairs to the lofted space) on your way to the bedroom.

Tiny houses are all about creating storage space wherever possible – like the wall to wall closet and overhead shelf space in the bedroom.

And here the lofted space – perfectly kid sized!

I am really loving being out in the beautiful California countryside – peace and quiet and it gets so very dark at night with sooo many stars.

And sometimes horses come right up outside our windows 🙂

 

As the Tiny House movements grows and some people want to live in them full time or keep their Tiny Home on wheels, more and more communities are trying to hammer out details of zoning laws, building permits, and answers to other obstacles for people in those circumstances. For those types of Tiny Homes, it can still be a gray area in lots of places.

If you are interested in more about Tiny Homes, you can search for short term rentals on AirBnb or even look for a Tiny Home rental community.

What do you think? Let’s talk the #TinyHouse movement in the comments!

Kate

A Vagabond Experiment

Hi guys,

Taking a break from New Zealand photos (but I have so many more!) and wanted to share a bit about what life looks like right now.

For now, I am traveling around on the West Coast working on design projects, searching out art inspiration, and soaking up the atmosphere of a part of the country that I love so. much. In December, my husband and I packed all our things away in a storage locker in Minnesota so we could hit the road and live life wherever we found the opportunity.

Right now, we are in sunny California! Last week was spent in Los Angeles, enjoying places like Santa Monica pier…

 

…and Venice…

Where I especially loved the afternoon light and ducks floating around at home on the canals…

 

And we stopped by Chris Burden’s famous Urban Light art installation outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art…

I posted some of my favorite pieces of art from the LACMA over on instagram and saved them into a story highlight if you are interested!

For now, I’ll be spending a couple of weeks in Paso Robles, California surrounded by countryside and vineyards before we move on to Morro Bay to take in the sight and smell of the ocean (my favorite).

Hoping to share more photos and videos along our way!

xoxo,

Kate

Through the Fiordlands to Milford Sound

In November, my then fiancé and I headed off to New Zealand to get married. It was one of the best trips I’ve taken and I am so thankful we had the opportunity! New Zealand was stunning and I loved every bit of it, but I took so-o-o many photos and so-o-o much footage that it has been taking me awhile to sort through everything. I don’t mind though – going through it reminds me of all the fun memories. : )

So! I wanted to start off with some photos from Milford Sound which we saw on our first day in NZ. I hear it is beautiful in the frequent foggy weather, but it was also amazing on the sunny day we visited…

To get to Milford Sound, you travel through the Fiordlands on the South Island. We stayed in Queenstown (where we were about to get married!) and made the four hour drive (on the left side of the road!) through beautiful landscapes…

Every stop and overlook along the drive held another beautiful scene, like this one with mountains in the background and the river calmly flowing….

Once you reach Milford Sound, there are several great tour boat companies to take you around to explore the fjord. My favorite things to see were the waterfalls…

After our afternoon exploring the Fiordlands, we headed back to Queenstown and enjoyed the sunset as we drove along.

 

I love New Zealand! I’ll share more photos and video soon.

Seattle Weekend Vlog

I got a GoPro for Christmas last year and have had a blast using it to capture video memories. Recently, I’ve been compiling some short videos using my footage. Here’s one from a weekend in Seattle earlier this year:

Seattle 2017 from Kate Hollingsworth on Vimeo.

This is mostly edited in GoPro Studio and Adobe Premier, using some of the wide selection of music GoPro has available to work with your videos.

I really enjoyed the process of the video editing – choosing shots, syncing music beats with the camera tracking, and arranging the clips to tell a story.

I’ll share some photos from Seattle later next week. We had great weather all weekend and walked as much as we could. I loved it there!

Grand Canyon

One of the perks of traveling to Arizona for work so often for a couple years? Trips to the Grand Canyon!

I would drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff, and from Flagstaff to the South Rim of Grand Canyon….

There’s easy walking and hiking along the rim, with the expansive views of the Canyon around you. I like to go a little later around noon to miss the morning rush and watch the sunset.

As the sun goes down, the canyon sinks into shadows a piece at at time over the ridges….

It’s the kind of place I keep wanting to visit again and again.

Capri, Italy

The Island of Capri is a ferry ride away from the seaside town of Sorrento on the Southern side of Italy where we stayed. We headed to the island bright and early on Monday with the sun just starting to warm the waters…

We took a boat tour around the island and into the Blue Grotto, or Grotta Azzurra, a cave that shines bright blue due to the way the sunlight refracts up and through the water:

After seeing the island from around the edges, we headed up to the highest point via chair lift… my favorite part of the day!

As you float up, you can take in views of the whole of Capri, the Bay of Naples with Mt. Vesuvius in the distance, and the bright sparkling Mediterranean water…

From the top of Mt. Solaro, we hiked a meandering path all the way back down to the harbor. It took a few hours longer than we expected (bring lots of water if you give this a try), but the views were amazing the whole time.

If you are in the Naples area and have time for an extra day trip, Capri is a beautiful stop. 🙂