Travel Diaries: St Lucia

One Piece Swim Suit (Available in bikini style) // Moon Necklace // Bandana

Tularosa Romper // Mules // Sun Hat

Hello friends! Long time no talk- I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s and holiday season 🙂

I am extremely excited to finally be getting back to the swing of things after a few weeks out of town; I feel like between work, blogging, moving into a new apartment, cooking, working out, etc…….. well there’s a lot that was left on pause for a while!

I was so fortunate to get to spend SO much time with my fam bam over Christmas, honestly the best part of the last few weeks, as well as get out of town juuuust as some record breaking cold days hit Chicago… We spent Christmas in Toronto with our extended family and then hopped on a flight to St. Lucia on boxing day! 

I went to St. Martin a few times as a really little kid, but this trip definitely felt like my first true Caribbean experience; I knew nothing about the island and had no idea what to expect. It was also my family’s first time staying at an all inclusive resort, and my boyfriend Francis would be joining me and my little party animal sister Kate to complete our squad, so I had a feeling this beach vaycay may be a little different than some of our past ones. Which spoiler, I was right… Breakfast mojitos or bust, baby.

All About Our Resort

We flew into the Hewanorra International Airport, which was on one side of the island, and had a driver arranged through the hotel to take us to the resort, on the direct other side of the island haha. It ended up being about an hour and 45 min drive; St. Lucia is extremely mountainous, so the roads were crazy twisty and turn-y. I’m not one to get carsick but I definitely struggled on the couple car rides we ended up having. If you have a vacation to St. Lucia planned, my first bit of advice would be to pack some Gravol or Pepto Bismol chewables!

Like I mentioned, we stayed at a beyond stunning all inclusive resort called The Body Holiday (formerly known as Le Sport). We heard about it from my mum’s best friend who had stayed there within recent years and had nothing but fabulous things to say. One of the main reasons we decided to stay there was because of the resort’s major emphasis on wellness; they had an incredible fitness and spa area, dozens of different kinds of fitness classes every day, and amaaaazing food options. You could meet with a personal trainer every day, or even with a nutritionist or chef. The icing on the cake was the fact you get ONE spa treatment PER day during your stay, crazy right?!? You could get a massage, facial, body wrap, scrub….. Absolute wonderful insanity. Only downside was it completely turned me into a little spa brat, and now I’m trying to get back into work mode and it’s like ok yeah sure, but what time’s my heaven and earth massage today?!

One of the things we loved best about The Body Holiday was the size of the resort; the rooms and amenities were spread out over a ton of land and the guest occupancy was purposefully low. It was just incredibly serene and picturesque; their motto is “give us your body for a week and we’ll give you back your mind.” Yuuup, definitely hit the mark on that one.

The resort definitely felt like a bit of a hidden treasure— essentially everyone we met were either Brits or Canadians! The bar, pool, beachfront, or restaurants never felt overcrowded or were overly noisy (also helped that it definitely had a more “adults-only” vibe. Nothing against lil bebees, but sometimes you just want a vacation free from other people’s screamers hahaha). You could always get a cabana, you never had to wait in line to get a drink from the bar, and it allowed the highly attentive staff to always be checking in on you and asking if they could grab you anything. Also, a ton of Caribbean resorts will share their beaches with other hotels— Ours was totally secluded and private!

The Food

One huge thing you should know about me is that I live to eat. I’m legitimately always thinking about food, and love restaurant hunting and trying out new spots with an extreme passion, sooo turns out I was exactly in the right place.

The resort boasts three more formal restaurants, one of which featured a chef’s tasting menu, another was called Tao, which had unreal Asian-fusion. We ended up eating at Tao twice (New Year’s Eve was one of them!) because of how much we liked it haha. The third had a wide menu, tuna tartare, crab ravioli, spring pea risotto, steak, halibut, etc. There was always a million different things I wanted to try; we also definitely took the whole “all inclusive” thing to heart and did in fact order a ridiculous amount of food with each meal haha. Everything at each of the restaurants was extremely fresh, flavorful, and inventive. I loved that there was a heavy emphasis on fish dishes (my sister, mum, and I are all pescatarian), as well as toooons of vegetables. Which we of course balanced out with multiple desert orders throughout the day.

The resort also had a deli style open-air restaurant right by the beach, where you could order a smoothie, juice, salads and wraps, hummus/guac plates, along with other grab and go snackies (they had the most amazing coconut/chocolate/date energy balls!). They would have little shots of chia seed pudding every morning, different fruit infused waters they would mix up every day, and the staff would pass out fresh fruit kebobs to pool dwellers nearby— Needless to say, I was a huge fan of the deli haha.

Right next door was the resort’s main bar, right overlooking the water, completed with a full brick oven for making custom made mini pizzas and pastas, as well as a mediterranean inspired buffet they would change daily. This ended up being my favorite place to grab lunch; they would always have fresh fish, steamed veggies, stuffed grape leaves, olives, artichoke hearts, and the most incredible olive tapenade and pita crackers. Definitely not your average all-inclusive resort buffet haha, everything was unreal!

Tularosa Dress // Red Statement Earrings

Sunnies

Cover Up Pants

Top // Culotte Pants // Wedges

Tularosa Dress // Wedges

Tularosa Dress

Bikini Top // Bottoms

Show Me Your Mumu Top // Denim Shorts

What We Did

• Wake up, DRANK. (But actually though). Me, Kate, and Fran were little drunky monkeys the entire trip and it was honestly hilarious and so silly hahaha. We are definitely waaay past our college days, but my 21 year old sister totally brings out our fun sides. We took the expression Rosé all day literally, had Pimm’s with lunch, and would casually just ask for glasses of bubbly to walk around with. The mojitos were the absolute BOMB, as was the 70% proof rum punch… Which we only realized how strong it was after all of us had like 4 in one night, tee hee!
• Read by the beach and pool! This was definitely where I hit my prime; Fran and Kate needed a little bit more stimulation and activity and would continuously come up and bother me to come swim with them. Sorry I was just really excited to read, you guys! I did promise on Insta that I would talk about what beach books I brought along and give a quick little review of them, sooo here ya go:

My Beach Reads:

1. My Not So Perfect Life, Sophie Kinsella

Meh, pass on this one. My mum and sister had both gotten me books to read on the beach, so I quickly grabbed this one at an airport bookshop— Sophie Kinsella wrote the Shopaholic series, along with a bunch of other fun, kind of dumb, fluffy books with airhead but lovable characters. I assumed this book would fit in with her usual genre but it most certainly did not. For one, it took me almost the entire vacation to get through, and I am a very speedy reader! I honestly should have thrown in the towel and stopped reading it because it never improved. The main character is just… average. An average human being working in marketing, boring, not funny, not really… anything. She just kind of exists! And spoiler, but at the end of the book, all these wonderful things happen to her!! She gets the hot, rich, nice guy, gets promoted to a director level job at the company that originally fired her, and all is well in her world. And then there’s this kind of half assed attempt to throw in this theme of social media being so consuming, and how we use it to highlight and amp up the realities of our life. Yeah, no shit sherlock.

2. The Royal We, Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

Now, THIS is a beach read. Fun, light, juicy, dramatic… It’s also meant to be an obvious rip off the love story of Will and Kate… In this fictional story, it’s an American exchange student named Rebecca who falls in love with Prince Nicholas at Oxford. The timeline and events of the real fairytale romance is heavily borrowed from and inspired by, and I honestly don’t hate it at all. Nick has a red headed mischievous younger brother named Freddie, Nick and Rebecca break up for a few months due to the public pressure and invasive paparazzi, all plot lines you’ve probably read about in the tabloids, and yet, the book is never boring or annoyingly predictable. There is definitely a refreshing spin put on this re-telling; Rebecca is smart, witty, and highly likable, and it’s highly fascinating reading about what Kate Middleton may have experienced and felt as she watched her own relationship play out across the world through the press.

3. Good As Gone, Amy Gentry

My favorite read of the trip! Well actually, I read the whole thing on the flight home hehe. This was SUCH a page turner (I love me a good psychological-who dunnit-thriller). Thirteen year old Julie is taken in the middle of the night from her bed, as her younger sister watches, hiding in fear in the closet. Her family manages to stay together in the years that follow, broken and shattered, but holding onto hope that she one day could return. And one night, she does. The family is belated until Julie’s mother begins to doubt whether it is really Julie at all… (dun, dun, dunnnnn). This book will leave you guessing up until the last page. There are tragically beautiful characters and story lines, mystery and depth, and the author perfectly utilizes flashbacks to keep the story interesting and engaging, as well as keep you on your toes. Overall, really really well written, and the ending will shock and haunt you. Highly recommend!

• Now back to what we did… We spent the majority of the trip at the resort, but there were various day excursions you could sign up for if you were in the mood for a little adventuring. One night we took a bus to a marina with other hotel guests and went on a booze cruise on this gigantic pirate ship. There were staff dressed up in pirate gear, people were running around making sure you had a glass of champs in your hand at all times, and there was an indoor part of the boat with a full serviced bar, and buffet of appetizers. They blasted music and we drank, danced, and tried not to fall overboard (kidding kinda!).
• One of the days we went out into the rainforest and went waterfall repelling! It was absolutely incredible; we started out on the muddiest hike I’ve ever been on, until we finally made our way to this 125 foot waterfall. I competed in rock climbing back in the day, so I definitely felt in my element being harnassed up and descending down such a big height, but dealing with the gushing water, and the fact that it was a lot more physically involved than anticipated, definitely made it a challenge. I was so proud of myself when I made it down!
• Last but not least, we worked out a ton! I love making the most of my free time of vacations and always will make fitness a priority. What was great about this trip was getting to try out some different classes and mixing things up from my regular routine. Us girls took a pole dancing class, which was actually a TON of fun, and very silly lol. I took mat pilates, a really intense body pump class, and we allllll took aqua fit, which ended up being a total trip highlight. They played the best music and the workout was actually really though! It was essentially a dance party in the pool.

This trip was definitely one for the books! Between getting to hang out with all of my best peeps, spending New Years in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and meeting so many interesting and fun people at our resort, it couldn’t have been a better vacation. I hope you enjoyed reading this post; lots of hugs to you all, I know it was a long one! For anyone interested in anything I wore on my trip, you can click on any of the pictures below and it will automatically pull up links to everything I’m wearing 🙂