Don't go.... Stay!

Welcome to my little passion project: The Don’t Travel Blog!! I thought it was only appropriate that my first official post we talk a little bit about what The Don’t Travel Blog is and what it is hopefully going to be. So, lets dive right into it shall we??

Now, I’m guessing that your brain is jumping through some hoops right now. For a travel blog, The Don’t Travel Blog seems a little counterintuitive right? You are absolutely correct, but also completely wrong. Again, another contradiction. This is all in the spirit of what I want The Don’t Travel Blog to be: a constant contradiction.

As the tagline states: “Welcome to a place where honesty meets positive vibes and a passion for spontaneity meets a type-a personality.” This statement truly embodies not only four pillars I try to live by and recognize within myself, but it also signifies that life is never going to be a perfectly edited, airbrushed, and photoshopped image. Ideologies within ourselves are going to be constantly battling each other, but somehow, we continue to step forward and move further into the present experiencing all kinds of good and bad that inspire revelations about life. The Don’t Travel Blog is a space where honesty is the only constant, but it is important to note that in order to be honest, one might have to dwell and touch on the negative. That is not to say we will lose the positive. I’ve found that taking doses of negative energy with equal to larger doses of positive energy (when possible) is the best reminder to breathe. True honesty can be seen as harsh, accusatory, and presumptuous. I want The Don’t Travel Blog to begin to change this narrative.

The idea that a Type-A personality can even be synonymous with spontaneity seems laughable, but as stated above, somehow, life constantly contradicts itself and DTB is here to face these societal and universal contradictions that don’t seem to make any sense. How can a person who is innately a planner, organized, and infatuated with detail also be carefree, impulsive, and random in their decisions? That’s a fantastic question; welcome to my life.

If you’ve taken a look at the DTB homepage then you’ve read a bit about how the idea of The Don’t Travel Blog came to be. Seated in the white sand of the not-so-exclusive South Beach, Miami I and two of my bestie pals, Naomi and Mari, were looking around in utter confusion of where we were. The three of us had decided a week previous that we were going to drive 10 hours both ways from Columbia, SC to Miami, FL for a four-day weekend (enter the spontaneity). Our goal for the weekend: capturing content for the infamous “Instagram aesthetic”. Now a little side note before you continue: yes, we realized how ridiculous this sounded but we were three college seniors who had just lost a year of their college experience AND their Instagram feed to COVID, we were desperate.

We had always talked about how much we wanted to visit Miami; the sandy beaches, amazing food, exclusive clubs, and Instagram-worthy atmosphere pulled us in. Our first step in scrambling to research an entire trip in less than a week: Instagram. We searched through countless influencer accounts, travel blogs, and popular restaurants scrolling past eccentric dishes, pastel art-deco still shots, palm trees swaying, and sunsets labeled “#nofilter”. Everything was adding up to be the aesthetically perfect weekend.

Okay, back to us sitting on the beach… like I said we were confused, and I’m sure you’re wondering, “Chloe how can that be? You did your research!” We had! Or at least we thought we had, but there was no way the South Beach we were sitting on had been posted with #nofilter… This is where The Don’t Travel Blog was born, a platform for honest information, revelations, and reviews. And I am so excited you are here. Ready, Set, don't Go!