Life Lately: After mooning over pictures of Machu Picchu, llamas and ceviche and feeling thoroughly egged on by Kelly’s and my shared Pinterest board, I booked flights to Brazil and Peru for next year. Kelly and I are clearly bad influences on each other as she also went and booked flights! Our trip isn’t until next May but I’m already writing up an itinerary, saving blog posts and stalking trip advisor reviews to decide on my favourite hotels. Nearer the time I’ll post a more definite itinerary but at the moment the plan is to fly into Rio de Janeiro, visit Iguazu Falls then head to Peru and visit Lima, Sacred Valley, Macchu Picchu and Cusco. If you have blog posts please do post them in the comments or let me know any other tips. We have two and a half weeks but lots to fit in.
In terms of blogging, I’m loving my new WordPress blog and I would recommend anyone to go for it if they’re thinking of making the move from Blogger. I was given warnings that traffic might dip and I may lose page rank but neither of those things have happened to me and my traffic has steadily increased.
With being away for most of August and lots of my own bloggy stuff to catch up on, I haven’t had a much of a chance to guest post but I really enjoyed being part of Simone’s collaborative post where 10 Luxury Travel Bloggers shared their most luxurious stay. One of my fave bloggers, Samphire and Salsify also asked me to contribute a guest post on five of my favourite hotels for his fab food blog so please do check that out too.
Finally, this month my blog was short-listed for Best Luxury Blog in the Amara Blog Awards, the award ceremony is at the end of October, so fingers crossed!
Events: I had a few fun blog events this month including a Laurent Perrier and sushi tasting menu at Koi and a bloggers’ dinner at Gallery Mess. These events meant seeing two of my blogger friends Gary and Suze two nights in a row – so be sure to check out their take on the evenings too.
Jess from The Travelista also kindly invited to an incredibly interesting event at The Bloomsbury Hotel. We sat in the hotel’s gorgeous library listening to advice on travel writing from renowned author Colin Thubron, an inspirational man who has travelled widely and has published both non-fiction books and novels. My favourite piece of advice from Colin was to get lost and explore the places off the map, drop your own culture and preconceived ideas and get fully absorbed in the place that you’re exploring.
I also went on Yannick’s Piccadilly and Petits Fours Tour, it’s something that I’d seriously recommend if you want to see more of the hidden streets of London.
This week I was invited to Harrods for a tasting of the latest product from Champagne Armand de Brignac. The Blanc de Noirs is a super elite champagne and less than 3,000 bottles will be released and it will be exclusively stocked at Harrods for the first month.
The champagne was first established by the Cattier family but is now owned by Jay Z and is easily recognisable by its metal bottle and Ace of Spades logo.
Restaurants of the Month: Restaurant posts were slightly few and far between this month as I had a lot of travel stuff to catch up on – I promise there will be lots more next month. In September I had a cracking lunch at Egg Break, enjoyed some sushi with Emma at Murakami and a delicious family lunch of childhood favourites at Fischer’s. I’m not someone who tends to get takeaways as with going out so much I try to eat really healthily at home but when Sushi Shop asked if I’d to taste their new London Box I was keen to try it!
The sushi arrived very promptly at my door and there was a huge selection that was both tasty and of great quality. A little too much for me to have by myself for lunch but I did make a good effort with it ;).
The London Restaurant Festival starts tomorrow so check out BookaTable for deals, I’ve got one booked for next week with Lauren!
Travels: My blog has been dominated in September with posts from my recent trip to Singapore and Bali and there’s still lots more to come. Singapore is such an interesting place to visit and I felt like I was stepping into a vision of the future as I admired all the amazing architecture that surrounded me. I loved the Fullerton Bay Hotel and the pool at The Marina Bay Sands was totally out of this world! 
I had two incredible fine dining experiences whilst visiting the city-state first at The Tippling Club and then at Restaurant Andre, one of the world’s best restaurants. If you’re interested in how to cover off some of the top attractions in Singapore in a short amount of time, check out my top ten things to do. 
I was blown away by the beauty of Bali and I loved both the Four Seasons Jimbaran and The Viceroy Bali, where we stayed on the first half of our trip. We also had some incredible dining experiences at Cuca Flavor, Sarong, Cascades at The Viceroy and Mozaic; I loved the food in Bali!
At the end of October I’m off to the beautiful paradise island of St Lucia, follow me on Twitter and Instagram to see what I get up to!
Blog Love: Want to know how I travel First Class for £500? You must check out Kelly’s brilliant post on how to get First and Business class flight cheaply. I’ve loved Lauren’s posts on Croatia this month, Angela’s inspiring travels to Morocco and Jasiminne’s fascinating trip to Russia.
Huge congratulations to Polly who announced her pregnancy on her 30th birthday, my best wishes go to her and Rich.
Instagram: On Instagram I’m loving the Sociality Barbie account, a hilarious send up of all those travel blogger clichés. I also adore PaperBoyo’s account which features unique papercraft and travel photos, take a look it’s very unique.
That’s all my news for the month. What have you been up to? Do you have any exciting travels coming up?
