Road tripping is in my blood– I love the idea of cruising down back roads, windows down, music turned up. And since I traded my stilettos for flip flops when i moved from NYC to Florida almost 5 years ago, I’ve been more than content to explore all our neighboring sandy destinations, one summer road trip at a time.
One of the best trips of this kind, is the 230 mile, 4 hour drive (give or take) from West Palm Beach to the Keys–taking us to the charming and historic destination located at the southernmost point of Florida: Key West.
DAY 1
Once we made it to Key West, we checked into the Cuban inspired, Havana CabanaWaterfront Resort. Between the mid century cars, bright and colorful décor, lush pool oasis and tropical outdoor bar, this vibrant hotel brought on the charm and character.
Fair warning, Havana Cabana is located in New Key West, a 10 minute drive from the downtown area, but since parking downtown can be an issue, the hotel’s convenient shuttle service was actually perfect.
We began our first evening with an unforgettable Wind and Wine Sunset Cruise with fabulous hosts, Nate & Briana of Danger Charters. This sunset sail aboard a Historic 65ft Schooner serves an impressive eight different fine wines, as well as a selection of quality beers, and hors d’oeuvres, while you watch the fiery sun melt into the ocean. This might have been my favorite experience of the entire trip. I highly recommend it!
With our bags packed, we began our journey bright and early and were well into the Keys by noon. Here, we were delighted to pass local shops and restaurants, popular travel stops and incredible views, as far as our gaze could reach.
Islamorada is a great place to have a leisurely lunch or keep driving over the seven-mile bridge, that spans– you guessed it, seven miles– and connects the middle and lower Keys. It’s a spectacular view, with the ocean embracing you from both sides. Here you’ll also catch the remains of Flagler’s Overseas Railroad.
We dropped off our bags, grabbed a snack and headed down to the pool area. Fun fact: Havana Cabana actually boasts the largest pool in Key West–and it didn’t disappoint. A nice afternoon dip was the best antidote to the long drive.
All that fresh ocean breeze and seemingly endless amounts of wine, definitely stirred up our appetites. We headed for a stroll down the famous Duval Street and stumbled onto Bagatelle Island Restaurant, a charming historic 1800s home that was converted into a restaurant in 1979. Right on Duval, close to Mallory Square, Bagatelle was the ideal spot to have some light seafood fare while enjoying some people watching, to cap off our night.
DAY 2
We started the next morning in the hotel pool before heading out to take in a little Key West culture. On the agenda, visiting Key West’s most famous former resident, in spirit that is, at Earnest Hemingway’s Home and Museum. On the way, we stopped off at the distillery inspired by the famous author’s life. The Hemingway Rum Company Distilleryand Experience Center, located in a historic building just yards from where Hemingway used to dock his boat, the Pilar, serves as home to a working distillery, experience center, innovation lab, trading post and tasting room. A definitive must to celebrate the bold and complex nature of the Key West local.
Although hot and humid in the summer months, the walk was beautiful, allowing us to take in all of the pastel colored cottages and charming historic properties.
If it’s your first time in Key West, you can also take the Conch Tour Train or the Old Town Trolley that provides insight on the historical sights during your ride and also allows you hop on and off. Make sure to keep an eye out for Key West’s most colorful characters, the free roaming chickens and roosters.
When it was time for lunch, we headed over to the beach side of the island to The Reach Resort’sFour Marlins restaurant. Overlooking the only natural sand beach, it was the perfect place to savor more fresh local seafood while taking in some of the best views on the island.
After the tour, we head over to Hemingway’s Home on foot, where you can enjoy enjoyed a guided tour of the bon vivant’s home and work studio, as well as make friends with all the famous “six-toed” cats that roam the gardens lining the property.
Speaking of colorful residents, the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory is home to the most beautiful winged creatures. With over 60 butterfly species and over 20 bird varieties, It was a magical hidden gem that I highly recommend!
That evening, we hopped over to Key’s West famous Mallory Square for their nightly sunset celebration, where you can enjoy conch fritters and street performers or just watch the boats disappear under the ring of a golden sundown.
DAY 3
For our last day on the island, we booked the BugeyeBackcountry Adventure Tour that combined three great adventures into one day:
- A Key West schooner day sail.
- A guided kayak tour of mangrove islands
- And a snorkel tour of sponge gardens
There is certainly no shortage of things to do in this small island town and I look forward to coming back soon. In the meantime, I hope this itinerary inspires your own exciting Key West adventure. I’ll be posting a list of other suggestions soon. If you have a favorite bar or restaurant to share, I would love to hear your recommendations in the comment below!
A big thank you to keywestattractions.org and fla-keys.com/
#keywest #travelguide #travelblog #floridastaycations #floridadestinations #keywestvacation
It was an intimate nature tour limited to only 16 passengers– in fact, we were exactly 4 couples on board for this fun and relaxing day on the water. After departing from the picturesque Key West’s Historic Seaport, our day was spent exploring uninhabited mangrove islands in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge. After some fun snorkeling, we were back on the beautiful tallmast wooden ship for lunch and unlimited drinks. Not a bad way to end this fun-filled 3 day/2night stay on the island.
You can be eating the purest foods, but if you don’t adhere to basic food combining principles, you may be creating arduous work for your digestive system. Ill-combined foods can create carbonic gas, a noxious by product of food sitting on old matter in the body that causes inflammation, bone decalcification and body odor.
Follow the steps below to reduce the digestive load on your system. The easier you make it on your body to digest food, the less likely you will be storing toxins from undigested food in your body.
I’ve tried to simplify the process below.
These are the basic food combining guidelines to follow:
- Starches with starches
- Protein with protein
- Nuts with nuts, seeds, dried fruits and bananas
- Fresh fruits alone and on an empty stomach
- Raw vegetables can be paired with all meals.
- Cooked vegetables with starches and cooked non starch vegetables with proteins.
“Sure, pretty much everyone could benefit from therapy. But not everyone can afford it. Thankfully, there’s a whole world of free or affordable mental health care out there designed to help you with just about every issue, whether that’s kicking an addiction, managing your emotions, finding a group of like-minded peers, or recovering from trauma. Even better? Some of these resources are available whenever you need them. (No need to schedule an appointment between the hours of 9 and 5.) Support groups, hotlines and call centers, websites and online forums, and even apps can be put into action when you have a crisis or just need extra support.”
To help get you started, I’ve included a simple relaxation exercise that you can do anywhere at anytime.
The Relaxation Response
The following is the technique reprinted with permission from Dr. Herbert Benson’s book
The Relaxation Response pages 162-163
1. Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Deeply relax all your muscles, beginning at your feet and progressing up to your face. Keep them relaxed.
4. Breathe through your nose. Become aware of your breathing. As you breathe out, say the word, “one”*, silently to yourself. For example, breathe in … out, “one”,- in .. out, “one”, etc. Breathe easily and naturally.
5. Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm. When you finish, sit quietly for several minutes, at first with your eyes closed and later with your eyes opened. Do not stand up for a few minutes.
6. Do not worry about whether you are successful in achieving a deep level of relaxation. Maintain a passive attitude and permit relaxation to occur at its own pace. When distracting thoughts occur, try to ignore them by not dwelling upon them and return to repeating “one.”With practice, the response should come with little effort. Practice the technique once or twice daily, but not within two hours after any meal, since the digestive processes seem to interfere with the elicitation of the Relaxation Response.
* It is better to use a soothing, mellifluous sound, preferably with no meaning.or association, to avoid stimulation of unnecessary thoughts – a mantra.
Mental Health Resources:
https://greatist.com/grow/resources-when-you-can-not-afford-therapy
Regardless of your current health, everyone can benefit from knowing how to maintain healthy blood sugar from diet and lifestyle.
Reducing the overall amount of sugar in our diet is crucial to our health, but what about balancing our blood sugars as a whole?
Avoid artificial sweeteners at all cost.
Choose natural sweeteners with lower glycemic index such as coconut sugar and maple syrup.
Enjoy plant based healthy fats
healthy fats from nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut oil, take longer to digest which helps our body slow the absorption of sugars found in carbohydrates. Fats help our body to maintain nice, steady insulin levels.
Bulk up on fiber. Fiber, like healthy fats, takes longer to digest which helps our body slowly absorb sugars found in the carbohydrates that we consume. Enjoy plant based whole foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and legumes.
Move your body. Regular exercise drastically improves the way our body responds to sugar, by helping improve insulin resistance, especially in those of us with diabetes or blood sugar issues.
If you’ve tried any of these tips, I’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to share your results!
And remember! You know your body best, so pay attention to what foods affect your blood sugars and which ones keep you feeling steady energy all day long. It helps to keep a food journal, so you can learn from the changes you make in your diet and lifestyle and record any changes you feel.
I hope these tips are helpful for you in managing your blood sugar levels and keeping your energy balanced!
Add fibrous foods to your diet. Simply put, fiber adds bulk to our bowel movements, which helps us stay regular. Fiber also loads us up with a healthy dose of prebiotics (i.e. good bacteria in our guts). And because it takes longer to chew fibrous foods, you have plenty of time to activate digestive enzymes in the mouth to prepare your stomach for absorbing nutrients.
Which brings me to my next tip.
Chew. Chew. And Chew some more. The best and easiest way to improve your digestion is to make sure you’re chewing your food properly. It may seem simple, but too many of us don’t take the time to chew our food thoroughly which is essential to activate the digestive enzymes in your mouth and prepare your stomach for proper digestion.
Besides not chewing properly, when we eat our food in a hurry, we also tend to overeat.
Follow the 80/20 rule. Meaning, eat to an 80% capacity to allow room in your belly to enzymatically break down your food without falling into a food coma. Be mindful of what and how you eat, take breaks, and chew your food to avoid overeating.
Add fermented foods to your diet. We need acid to help break down our food. Raw apple cider vinegar and fermented vegetables such as kimchi, not only contain acids to help with digestion, they also contain live bacteria (i.e. probiotics) excellent for digestion
Consume more bitter foods. Foods like turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, garlic, and onion as well as other warming spices and pungent compounds, stimulate your digestion and ultimately help us absorb more nutrients.
Do you suffer from digestive issues? Have you tried any of these tips before? I’d love to hear all about it! Feel free to share your thoughts below and share your digestive friendly recipes on Instagram/julesaron—link to my account please.
The gut is responsible for regulating our immune system and can be the largest cause of inflammation within our body from food intolerances or sensitivities, high stress, illness, bacterial and yeast overgrowth, etc. Gut health is cornerstone to how healthy our overall bodies are, especially when it comes to fighting inflammation.
The foods we eat can either contribute to inflammation or fight it. A diet rich in whole foods, phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber help keep our gut healthy and calm inflammation.
Here is a list of foods especially great at fighting inflammation and make sure to try the turmeric rich golden milk latte recipe below!
Turmeric
Garlic
Rosemary
Cinnamon
Coconut oil
Fermented foods such as kimchi, kefir, coconut yogurt
Golden Milk Latte
This may very well be the perfect comfort drink to be enjoyed curled up on the couch on a cold winter’s day. Yet I’ve enjoyed it just as often in a tall glass over ice. However, you choose to serve it, feel good knowing the warming spices and the peppery turmeric’s potent anti-inflammatory benefits are helping you boost your immunity.
Makes 2 servings
2 cups coconut milk
0.25 ounce pure vanilla extract
0.75 ounce pure maple syrup
Freshly grated nutmeg
Ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
In a medium-size saucepan, combine the coconut milk, vanilla, maple syrup, nutmeg and cinnamon, and turmeric over medium-low heat, stir constantly and being careful not to burn the milk. Bring almost to a boil and remove from heat.
Divide between two mugs and serve sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg and a pinch of cinnamon.
Superfood Spotlight
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a bright yellow root that has long been used in the Chinese and Indian systems of medicine as an anti-inflammatory agent to treat a wide variety of conditions, including hemorrhage, toothache, bruises, chest pain, and colic. It is also what gives this milk punch its golden hue.
Eat Well Guide, find what produce is grown seasonally in your area
Farmers Markets in the U.S.
Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)
Eat Right.org, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Environmental Working Group; Cosmetic Database
Think Dirty app (cosmetic database)
Environmental Working Group; What’s in your water?
Environmental Working Group; Pesticides in food
Natural Resources Defense Council, mercury content in fish
Guide to safe seafood and mercury levels
National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
Office of Dietary Supplements
Jack Norris, RD, vegan health database
National Council Against Health Fraud
Consumer Labs, third party testing of dietary supplements
Examine.com, scientific data on supplements
Supplement Goal Reference Guide by Examine.com