Hey there! Thanks for stopping by my blog! I’m Nikki, a half-Greek/half-German LA-native currently enjoying loft living in fabulous DTLA with my husband Albert. When I’m not trying to find a way to travel more, I spend my time in LA exploring the city on foot or bike, working out (mainly just so I can enjoy what I eat & drink, although a better healthier bod is always a plus!), opening boxes from my online shopping habit much to Albert’s disgust, adventuring and laughing with my fam & friends, cheering on Trojan football, drooling over fashion inspo on social media, making a million “To Do” lists, dancing any chance I get, postponing cleaning out my closet, and of course, supporting all of my addictions by working my 9-5 as a Real Estate Broker.
This blog came about after our honeymoon. Albert convinced me that after I successfully pulled off our dream destination wedding and subsequent beyond perfect honeymoon that I was a travel and planning “expert”! I know, I know… He has a biased perspective since he is generally the beneficiary of all that A+ planning. I kind of blew off his comment at first but the more I thought about it and the more he kept saying it, a montage of comments from my friends, family & acquaintances over the years flew through my head. After every trip we had gone on, people asked me for a detailed review of everything we did and even for our full itinerary, which, as you will see on this blog, I take to a-whole-nother level. I am always so happy to share our experiences and honest feedback on what we would and wouldn’t do again and I have witnessed the value appreciated immensely by all those who have asked. Thinking even more, people have even asked me to plan trips for them! OK… so maybe my biggest fan was onto something here. After about a week of being back from our honeymoon and getting my life in order again, I started putting some extra thought into it: Would I have enough to write about? Would a good amount of people find it helpful? Would it be interesting? Would I have enough value to add to make it worth my time? My answer to all those questions was “Yes, without a doubt!” At a minimum, I thought, this would serve as a great travel diary for my own purposes – a single journal that I would have to recall all of the places I’ve traveled to with all of the specifics so that 5 years from now when I decide to go back to the little amazing taverna on the hidden beach in Mykonos, I remember the name (ahhhh… Nammos)!
With my mind made up to proceed with sharing my travelogue with the world, I continued to think about what people, even complete strangers, repeatedly ask me about. That thought had actually occurred to me about a year previous when I decided to start an Instagram account dedicated solely to my beauty obsession. Ever since I can remember, I have been addicted to makeup! I worked as a makeup artist through college at a MAC counter inside a salon. The owner of the salon was sweet enough to give me a chance without my cosmetology license, a total legal no-no but I truly appreciated the risk he took offering me that job. Anyhow, fast forward a couple years later… I graduated with my business degree from USC and decided to join the family real estate business at the request of my dad. My dreams of a career surrounding makeup had to find another way to manifest itself. After all, being a self-dubbed “Beauty Junkie” who is willing to buy any and EVERY beauty product there is in order to find THE perfect ones, I’ve got a LOT to share! And so my beauty IG was born! Sorry! I’m a talker (my honey even calls me “24/7” since I run my mouth 24/7). Back to this blog… I realized this would ultimately be an outlet for me to share all my travel adventures and all my creative energy (that gets pushed by the wayside too often in my real estate role) be it my beauty obsession or my love of style or my ability to organize lots of lists… so why not combine everything, all my interests, experiences and insight, into one all-out gift for anyone who wants it?
So read away and take what you are interested in, and leave what you think isn’t for you. I truly hope you find this as helpful of a resource as I do! My promise to my readers is that I will give you all I can think of that I find useful in an honest, engaging, and, hopefully, insightful way! Sit back and enjoy!