Travel Blogger Archives | Jessica's Photography

Dove Inn, Golden Colorado | Travel Photographer

January 14, 2020

If you know me, you know I love to travel! I love big and small trips! There is so much to explore close by where we live! It has been such a long time since I visited the Denver area, and it was time to get back and take a little three-day excursion to visit Golden, Colorado. Golden is located about an hour away from the Denver International Airport, 30 minutes outside of Denver, and an hour and a half to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park.

We stayed at the cutest place; The Dove Inn is a recently renovated 1866 Victorian Mansion. The details inside were soooo amazing! They restored it wonderfully! The Dove Inn is a mix between a Bed & Breakfast and a Hotel. The service happened behind the scenes; we had self-check-in and checkout; the continental breakfast was ready to grab when we woke up. We had excellent service even though we hardly saw anyone during our stay! The breakfast came from local companies and one of my favorites, Noosa yogurt! The delicious pastries are provided by Cafe 13, just down the street! It was the perfect amount for a fresh start to the day! We stayed in the Castle Rock Studio room, and this room would be perfect if you were traveling with a large group. Equipped with a full-size kitchen and the Murphy bed folded right up and opened the space for larger gatherings!

When we travel, I love to find fun new restaurants and Golden, Colorado has so many options to choose from on the historic main street. The Dove Inn is in the perfect location to walk to any of them. We ate at the Thai Gold, Abejas, and The Sherpa House. Our favorite was Abejas, the modern farm to table menu was so unique. The local trout and steak had accompaniments of a fresh twist on puréed vegetables and tasty grains.

We enjoy walking around downtown Golden. We are suckers for outdoor gear shops, and I am surprised neither of us came home with a new jacket! There are so many fun shops to peruse!

When we first decided to go to Golden, I knew I wanted to try and get some time in Rocky Mountain National Park. I enjoy the mountains, and I love being able to check off another National Park on my list. From The Dove Inn to the entrance of the park, it took us an hour and a half to get there. The drive is so scenic once you enter the mountains. We traveled in January, and we were expecting a lot more snow; I guess when you live in Logan and always have snow in the winter, you assume that the mountain towns are going to have the same amount of snow. We rented snowshoes in Golden just in case we needed them, but the snow was packed down enough in the areas that we hiked that we didn’t use them. Next time I will bring some spikes for my boots. We drove up to Bear Lake and walked around it and then hiked up to Nymph Lake. They were easy hikes and very passable in the winter; the views were so spectacular. We only had an afternoon, so we only got to two of the lakes. There were so many other trails I would have loved to explore. After we drove around and chased the last bits of light and viewed the breathtaking scenery.

This year I feel like I missed the holidays, I took on a lot of photoshoots while everyone’s families were in town. Once the New Year hit, I felt like I didn’t get to relax and celebrate. When the opportunity came up to travel to The Dove Inn, the getaway was definitely needed! Everything about the place was so relaxing, we were able to come and go as we liked. The bed and bedding were so comfortable, we didn’t want to leave! They did such a fantastic job on all of the details, it made for a beautiful weekend! Now I am ready to tackle 2020, thanks for the lovely stay, Dove Inn!

Travel Blogger

Travel Guide to the Faroe Islands: Part Two | Travel Photographer

October 30, 2018

If you missed Part One to the Travel Guide to The Faroe Islands, click here!

Day Four:

We wanted to drive as far as we could so we went towards the island of Vidoy to do a hike. It was such a beautiful drive! The islands aren’t very big and it doesn’t take too long to go across. It took about an hour and a half to get to Vidareidi on Vidoy.

We attempted to hike Villingardalsfjall, it was a doozy! It was straight up the hill and through lots of mud and rocks. We were almost to the top and we could see the rain starting and it would have been a nightmare to come down in the rain, it would have been so slippery and pretty dangerous on the steep hillside. We were probably about a half mile from the top. We heard that the views were incredible from the people coming down earlier from the hike, so we will have to try and tackle that one next time!

On the map that you get at the airport there are a lot of Buttercup Routes that are points of interest. On the way home we hit a few of those and that was so fun searching for the Buttercups and they weren’t just scenic views, they were some of the most epic drives I have ever been on. The views were unreal. To find the Buttercups they are pointed out with the name of it with a buttercup on the sign and then on the road you will see signs with Buttercups on them assuring you that you are on the right road. Most of the Buttercups were on small narrow, one way roads, and usually a decent cliff off of one side or the other, don’t let this keep you away from them, just a warning for the driver. Cole got a little nervous with me trying to look at the amazing scenery while staying on the tiny road! Haha! We were able to see these Buttercups that night: Oyndarfjordur and Hellunar.

We tried to just do a cheaper dinner that night and had pizza and a pita at the local pizza shop not the best food decision. But we were tired!

Visit Faroe Islands

Day Five:

This was one of our favorite days, even though they were all so good and everything was so amazing!

First we went to Saksun and it was so beautiful!! We did the hike Ut a Lonna, it starts in Saksun and goes along the river and then it connects to the beach. Make sure to go at low tide so you can go as far as possible. It was such a relaxing walk, we really enjoyed it! I loved the black sand! We were surrounded by cliffs with small homes and waterfalls everywhere!

In Klaksvík there is a little bakery, Bakeriid Hja Jorun that we got some sweets and rolls and cheese at for our lunch.

We caught the 2:10 ferry from Klaksvík to Kalsoy. We had enough time to drive to the end of the island and hike to the Kallur Lighthouse. It was an amazing hike!!! The view of the cliffs at the lighthouse were so beautiful. It was so windy and muddy that we couldn’t hike down below but I can only imaging what it would have been like. I loved the green hillsides that we were able to hike right along with the sheep. It was incredible. With it being their off season the ferry was limited, so we had to make it back to the ferry by 5:35 pm, and it was close! They let 15 cars on and we were number 12 in line and then 2 workers cut in front so we almost didn’t make it! We even arrived at 5:10, so I would recommend getting back to the ferry as soon as you can, if we would have missed it we would have had to wait until 10:00 pm for the next ferry.

On the way back we tried to fit in a few more Buttercups and we were able to get to Elduvik and the views at the tiny village were so amazing! There wasn’t enough time to get to all of the Buttercups and I can only imagine how beautiful they all are!

Later that night we ditched our hiking clothes and went back to the nice restaurants and ate at Aarstova for a 3 course meal, Cole enjoyed the Shoulder of Lamb and I got the poached Cod and it was so amazing!!

Visit Faroe Islands

Black and White film photo from Cole on the ferry to Kalsoy.
Visit Faroe Islands

Day Six:

On our last day we just had the morning and we were a little sad our trip to The Faroe Islands had to come to an end!! We hadn’t been through Tórshavn while shops were open so we went and shopped around in the morning and I bought some yarn I am excited for!! I will try to be a knitter again!

There is a Buttercup going out of Tórshavn so we made that drive on our way out of town. This one was on top of the cliffs and above the usual route back to Vagar. When we were down below I knew the mountains were tall around us, but when we were on top of the mountains I realized how tall they were and the road was nice and narrow right on the cliffs!! And it was super windy and rainy! We soaked in our last drive back to the airport!

We arrived in the domestic Reykjavík airport around 4:20, and I had planned to just store our luggage and go back and walk around Reykjavík for the evening but luckily I looked at our car rental, I knew it was at the other airport, but I thought the rental company would be open later. It closed at 6! So we had to rush over there. The FlyBus didn’t have any departures until 8:00 pm, so we had no choice…. we had to take a taxi and it was $145!!! And then all of the shops would be closed in Reykjavik so I couldn’t get another pastry and my plates…. I know real problems here! Haha. It worked out and we got our car and we thought we booked a hotel for our stay but it was really an AirBNB that was still under construction. We stayed in Keflavík and ate a a cute restaurant Library. Later we drove to a little lighthouse and had the most amazing views of the Northern Lights, it was unreal!!!! This world is such a beautiful place!!

Day Seven:

Because of how flights worked out with The Faroe Islands we had an extra day in Iceland. We chose to drive along the southern Ring Road, we made it to Vik, it was about a 3 hour drive but with the stops we made it took us about 5 hours.

When I bought my yarn in Tórshavn, I realized after that I had bought two different whites. As we were driving through Selfoss I told Cole to watch for yarn balls so I could try to get the right one and two seconds later I was turning the corner and Cole didn’t know what had happened! Hahah, I saw some yarn balls on a little hand made signs and found the right yarn!

After that our first stop was at Seljalandsfoss there were 3 beautiful waterfalls to walk around and you could hike behind the main one. It had felt like a long drive from Keflavík to this point so it was nice to be walking around the beautiful scenery. After this point there were a lot of beautiful things to see. Skógafoss was the next waterfall and I loved that you could walk right up to the base, the black rocks and sand were so beautiful! It was amazing when the sun came out it seemed like the rainbow was going to make a full circle! This drive was so breathtaking, the green mountains and cliffs were so beautiful! We made a quick stop to look at the glacier and then moved on.

We stopped at the Black Sands beach to view the Reynisdrangar, I loved seeing all of the pillar rock formations, it was quite the spot for everyone getting their IG photos! Haha! I knew there would be a lot of tourist in Iceland, but I totally underestimated how many people would be at each stop. It was like visiting Zions National Park in the middle of summer, there were people everywhere!

We made it to Vik and I thought it would be a bigger town, but it was pretty small so we ate dinner at one of the two places offered and it was cafeteria style, I was hoping for something a bit better but we were hungry. We chased the last light back and I was hoping to find some fun Icelandic horses but we couldn’t find them until after the sun went down. It was definitely a short little journey in Iceland and it would have been nice to not be rushed but we did what we could in a day. We made the journey back to our place and it took 3/4 hours with our stopping a lot to take photos during golden light.

Travel Day:

Our flight left Reykjavik Keflavík International airport at 11:10 am and we laid over in Dallas and got into Salt Lake City at 6:00 pm, it is so nice coming home and gaining a day and not getting home super late. It was a trip of a lifetime, probably one of our favorites!!!

When we go back to The Faroe Islands, the first things on our list will be Mykines Island, Ragnin Hike in Vágar, ferry to Nolsoy and Sandoy, looks like we have our next trip already planned out! Who wants to go?? 🙂

Visit Faroe Islands

Travel Guide to the Faroe Islands: Part One

October 3, 2018

For years my dream vacation has been a location with small towns or villages, with cliffs along the ocean for miles and miles of hiking and The Faroe Islands made my dream vacation happen! As we looked up things to do and see we got super excited, the hikes and the cliffs were unreal. Once we were actually there it was still like a dream, the landscapes were some of the most beautiful I have ever seen and I have been all over the world. The Faroe Islands easily made its way to one of my top favorite places. We will definitely be coming back. As we were driving and hiking around we had no words to describe what we were seeing, we just were in awe and all we could say was wow, wow, wow!

This is probably my most detailed travel guide, because I wrote it on the plane after so it was all fresh on my mind and I want everyone to experience The Faroe Islands! Usually I write my posts years down the road to go with all of the photos.

While planning our trip The Visit Faroe Islands website was a great source for planning!

When planning each day I would recommend planning one or two main things to do. We loved taking our time at each spot and really exploring. I had originally planned to see more but I loved taking our time in each spot. It was very enjoyable.

We booked this trip on a whim, so we definitely learned a few things while we were there of how we would do it differently. We traveled in the middle of September which is their off season, which is how I prefer to travel. Usually the weather is still great just a bit colder, and there are a lot less travelers, which is what I love! With it being the off season some of the ferries were not in service or they had limited time frames. The only ferry that we really missed out on was the one to Mykines, that island looked amazing and we were sad to miss it. I tried to book a helicopter tour and had emailed someone prior to the trip and I did not receive all of the correct info. It wasn’t going to be super expensive but they don’t have round trips in the same day so we would have had to stay on the island for a night or two depending on the day that we went out. Click here for more info on that. But we had already booked our AirBNB, so we will have to do that next time. We took the ferry to Kalsoy and it was so amazing, with it being off season we only had a short window to be there but it was enough time to get to the main hike on the island and back. Make sure to arrive early for the ferry, some are super small and only have room for 15 cars.

I think it is a must to have a car on the Faroe Islands, there are definitely ways to make it work without, the buses were very reliable and easy to use. But the convenience of having your own car is worth it. Especially if you are like me and have to stop every 10 minutes to take photos of the scenery. Because we booked so close to our travel dates we kind of lost a few options for better car services. We booked ours through Avis, most of the car companies that we looked at limited your kilometers, they allowed only 100 km per day, when we booked we hoped that would be enough…. but we ran out of miles and still had a day and a half left. So, we just kept going and paid extra for the miles. I knew the car expenses would be more than we planned so I just didn’t worry about it in the end, but it added up fast and it was super expensive to drive for the 4 days that we had the car. But I didn’t want to be stopped from viewing as much as possible.

We only filled up with gas at the end, we drove just over 700 km, we put in 44 liters and it was 385.00 KR about 60 USD. Our flight left in the afternoon and we had scheduled our car to pick up in the morning, so we would have had to return it at 9 am and then have a full day in the airport, if they would have had luggage lockers I would have done that because you would be able to easily access a few hikes or towns near the airport that would be fun to walk around. But I went for the convenience and just paid for an extra day rental to keep our car longer.

There are a few other car expenses to be aware of, there are a few underwater tunnels that charge a toll, so we tried to plan things on those islands and only do them once, but we ended up having to pay those tolls a few times because we couldn’t get enough of those islands. Traveling from the island Vágar to Streymoy (200 KR about 31 USD) and Eysturoy to Bordoy (100 KR about 15 USD). We took the ferry from Klaksvík to Kalsoy and that was 200 KR about 31 USD. We had read on someone else’s blog that the ferries were cheaper, so expect a bit more on those, I am not sure what they compare to with the other ferries on the islands.

We were prepared for super cold weather, we had lots of layers packed! We brought our heavy coats and boots and did not need them during the day. We got super lucky with the weather and our last day was the only bad day while we were there. But don’t plan for that, it was nice to know that if it turned cold we would be warm. I would recommend making sure your hiking shoes are waterproof, that made all of the difference. A lot of the time you are hiking through fields and muddy hillsides. There are also a lot of water drainages coming over the trails. Most of the time when we were hiking we just went in our long sleeve shirts or just a little jacket on top, we shedded layers on every hike….. but everyone that we passed was zipped up all of the way with lots of layers, so maybe it felt like home with my Viking blood! I love cold weather hiking! The weather did change pretty fast when it did.

Travel Day:

We departed Salt Lake City at 3:30 and had the most amazing flight times and connections thanks to my mom. We had a lay over in Dallas and flew right to Reykjavik, it was only a 7 hour flight and went super fast. Our flight arrived at 9:00 in the morning in Iceland.

Day One:

We arrived from Dallas into Reykjavík Keflavik International airport at 9:00 am and then our flight to The Faroe Islands left at 6:00 pm from the Domestic Airport in Reykjavik. To get to the other airport we took FlyBus, it was easy to find at the airport and it took about an hour and a half to get to the other airport. It was about $30 per person, and a taxi was $145… I will talk about that later.

The domestic airport had luggage lockers so we locked up our stuff and walked up to Reykjavík it was a 45 minute walk to the town center. We just headed towards the giant church and found our way just fine. We loved walking around the little streets!! We were starving so we looked for a place to eat first and we had some delicious traditional Iceland fish stew at Salka Valka, it was amazing and it was 2400 ISK per plate. I found some beautiful dishes that I wanted and hoped I would be able to come back and get but our timing on things on the return didn’t work out as planned.

Don’t miss the most amazing pastry shop in Reykjavik, Sandholt, it was probably one of the most amazing danishes I have ever had the crust was so flakey and baked to perfection, topped with a delicious rhubarb jam. I am still sad we just shared it!!! We walked back to the airport and easily boarded our flight.

We arrived in Vágar at 8:00 pm and we took a taxi to our AirBNB in Argir, just out of Tórshavn. We would have rented our car that night but because of our last minute booking it was super expensive renting one that night. The taxi was 200 DKK per person, there were plenty of taxis waiting after our flight. If we would have done more research we could have taken the bus into Tórshavn and found our way from there. Most times when I travel I like to just take a taxi first thing, it helps you get familiar with the area, and not having to deal with all of your luggage on public transportation is always worth the extra cost to me.

Visit Faroe Islands

Day Two:

We were a bit jet lagged on this day so we took the morning easy and then had to go pick up our rental car at the Vágar Airport. Our AirBNB was about a 30 minute walk to Tórshavn and the path was down to town was so perfect, it went along the prettiest river, we took this path instead of driving several times because it was so beautiful.

We road the bus from Tórshavn to Vágar and it only took 40 minutes and it was $15 per person. The bus station is right by the harbor in Tórshavn, very easy to find.

After we got our car in Vágar we went and hiked from Bour to Gasadalur. When leaving the airport make sure you have waters and snacks for your hike we thought we would come to a gas station or something before the trailhead and we didn’t, so we did the hike anyways, it would have been nice to have water. You have to go to the town before the airport to access a market or gas station, there aren’t any from the airport to Gasadalur.

The first part of the hike had the most amazing views of Bour and Vágar and you could see the incredible Dragnin Arch across the way and eventually have views of Mykines. It was a decent climb going up the first mountain, the trail switchbacked a bit, but it mostly went straight up. There were decent trail markings at the first, but with the mud and grassy paths some parts of the trail were hard to pick out, a lot of the trail looks just like the sheep trails. Once you get up the grassy mountain the trail gets a lot easier to pick out and not as steep. There are a lot of cairns to pick out your way. We only hiked to the view point of Gasadalur, because we would have had to hike back on the road to get to our car. We hiked back the same way and then drove to the cute town of Gasadalur and viewed the amazing waterfall going into the ocean. There were a lot of fun grassy trails that went along the cliffs and through the fields we enjoyed walking through them. We were there right before sunset and the light was incredible it was the perfect place to view the sunset.

We got back to our Air BNB around 9:30 pm, and then we walked back down to Tórshavn because we had a manual car and I haven’t drove stick since college and I was a bit rusty and nervous about driving around the small streets. We ate at the Tarv, right along the harbor. It was good, small portions but still good. Because we came during off season not a ton of the restaurants were open that late.

Visit Faroe Islands

Day Three:

For breakfast we went to the local market and just bought yogurt, and bread and jam for breakfast and cheese and crackers for lunch. Groceries were pretty expensive for what we got, it was around 25 USD, the bread and jam lasted the entire time but we got a lot more yogurts throughout the trip.

We went back to Vágar to hike Sørvágsvatn and it was so amazing!!! With this hike you get two killer views. One of a waterfall going into the ocean from the lake and one where the lake is right above the ocean. It is incredible.

As we drove back we explored the towns on our way back. There are so many quaint towns, we just loved them!

I am always so weird when it comes to finding restaurants when we travel, I like to look at multiple places and like to see the menu before we decide. Most places will have it posted outside. We found the most amazing area with really small fancy restaurants. They were the cutest little houses with grass roofs, I knew we had to eat at one of them but wanted to choose the right one. So we looked at several of them. We had just got done hiking so we had hiking shoes on and our big camera bags and we were totally out of place!! I embarrassed myself! We decided to do one of those places on our last night so we could get out of our hiking clothes and look a little more presentable. It was a good choice I would have felt so uncomfortable during the dinner and I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it. We found an easy place to get a bite, and headed back home.

Visit Faroe Islands