I am working long days, long hours, stretching the time and myself at this moment, and I am ready for a vacation of being busy of doing nothing at all (sorry, I don’t even like that song, but now it started playing in my head). Ironically what I am working on is our summer issue of coastal family vacations, and maybe that’s why I admit – I am ready for it! Bring me the beach, let me sit on the dock of the bay (ha, the song in my head just turned into a better one), have a cold drink in my hand and get on a boat and feel breeze on my face and smell the salt of the sea. I just want that coastal family vacation, and I want it now! I am not the only one today who is dreaming of beaches, read Reeta’s post on her site House of Anais of her beach love and see some of her favorite beaches. In the upcoming magazine, Reeta also shares some of her favorite California beaches, and we interviewed her daughter Anaïs, whom Reeta’s blog is named after. In addition to Anaïs, we are featuring 9 other traveling kids, and what they think of moving and traveling to new places. My children and I had several great discussions as we did the interviews together. My family is also going to be in the magazine, my son in the cover, and you will get to know a little bit more about my husband too. It’s a family issue, so I felt it was important that my family is part of it. That’s right, my family helped me in several ways in the making of this issue, and so did Skimbaco’s Instagram “family.” Instagram has been a great buffer for me to get ideas for topics for the online magazine, and it’s Instagram where I get honest feedback what a possible cover image for our magazine could look like (for the last issue I didn’t choose the original picture, after listening the feedback from my Instagram friends). It was also on Instagram where someone said to me that our magazine doesn’t look like it’s for real people, the pictures are too nice, and only the rich can enjoy life the way we do. In reality, we don’t use stock photos in the magazine, in fact, some of the photos are taken with a smart phone! The photos and content is always created by our own team, and in each issue we have two guest writers. Some of the guest writers are famous lifestyle or travel experts, but some are our friends. In each magazine we also feature two Instagram-friends and publish their Instagram photos. If any magazine is real, we are. I also got another comment on a recent Instagram photo. It was “Katja, you live like in a magazine.” I answered, “yes, I do, and it’s called Skimbaco Lifestyle.” And I am just like anyone else, my life is taking kids to school, showing up at work (while it is my home office, it still is work and I have to show up and work), and I wash laundry, make dinner, and go through things everyone else does in life. However, I seize the day. I enjoy my coffee moment, try to make my family laugh with my stupid jokes, make dinner time an adventure and sometimes live somewhat too minimalistic life so we can save money for extraordinary travels (or moving to a new place). Not living life to the fullest and experiencing extraordinary is not an option. And that’s what Skimbaco Lifestyle really is about, and I know I am not the only who lives this way. Last week I wrote about Instagramming with integrity, and today I would like to encourage you to “seize the day” and find the beauty in it. It is easy to look at the #IGtravelThursday photo stream, and feel “I wish I was there right now,” and feel stuck in the place, stuck in time, and just wishing for the getaway. However, most my Instagram-friends post beautiful pictures not just from their travels, but from their own backyards and neighborhoods as well. Your everyday life is exotic to someone else, and it can be the most beautiful thing to you. Our dream this summer was to go to Greece, but since this spring has been quite busy for us, and simply we didn’t have the time to put on travel research and didn’t easily find the flight-hotel-activities combo we were looking for, we dropped the entire plan, and are heading to my family’s summer house in the Turku archipelago in Finland instead. It’s not going to be the luxury coastal trip we dreamed of, but I think it will actually be better: there is no wifi at the summer house, and we will get to see family. There is a private beach, maybe a row boat and a fishing rod. Midnight sun, Nordic nightless night and eating dinners outside. We can visit the cousins, see the aunts and uncles, have three-hour-discussions face to face while nobody is checking their phones. This summer I will seize the day, and go back to my childhood scenes, back to same places, I just wanted to leave when I was growing up, and I already now know that I will “seas the day” on the coast. How are you seizing the day? Share it with us and use #skimbaco for life’s best moments and #igtravelthursday for your travel photos. On related news, we won’t be publishing posts during a summer vacation, but Instagram Travel Thursday will still be hosted in many other blogs. Bloggers, join our Facebook group so you can get the linky code even when I am on vacation.
IGTT Traveling Linky
Read more Instagram Travel posts from these new blog posts this week and add your own blog post.
Not a blogger? Not a problem. Join us at Instagram by using hashtag #igtravelthursday and share your travel photos.
Bloggers! Join the Instagram Travel Thursday and Host the Linky!
Bloggers, join us! Add your blog post to the Linky above, and you can also take the Linky code and add the Linky widget in your blog! Get email sent to you when the Instagram Travel Thursday linky post is up (subscribe it here). Get the InLinkz code for your post. Copy and paste the following rules and the banner image when you host the Linky widget: Join us for Instagram Travel Thursday! Instagram Travel Thursday is a weekly blog post collection with a purpose to promote the great travel experts on Instagram and Instagram as a source for travel inspiration. Add your Instagram Travel-related post to the Linky. Here are the Linky rules: Link to a new Instagram travel post and use the permalink of your post, not the homepage URL. Only new posts from the week of the linky and no giveaways, other linkys or sales pitches. No links to your Instagram profile, only links to your blog. Link back to one of the Instagram Travel Thursday Linky hosts. Visit a few other posts in the linky and show them some love (comment, tweet, Pin etc.). Links that do not follow the guidelines will be removed. More information at Skimbaco Lifestyle’s Instagram Travel Thursday page.
Katja Presnal shows how to live Nordic inspired life to the fullest and plan your dream life. Katja owns Presnal5 strategic marketing intelligence agency and wants to help marketing professionals to combine a dream career and dream life via freelance work. Katja is an award-winning marketing strategist, and a well-known speaker. Katja has lived in five different countries, and seven states in the USA. Her three children were all born in different countries within three years. When not working or jet-setting the world, Katja is at home cooking big family dinners. She has been featured in NY Times, Glamour, Redbook, Fodor's, Forbes and Woman's Day magazines among many other national and international publications and written for MTV3 and Lifetime TV networks. View all posts by Katja Presnal
Oh!! All these IGTT posts about summer!! I am sitting here in Western Australia with a big coat on and two pairs of socks. In my head I know that we actually get a much longer summer than nearly anywhere in the world but right now, it is cold and my heart is ready to fly north!!!! Have a great vacation time, Katja!
Not just sisu, hygge or lagom – all of them: Skimbaco. Skimbaco is Nordic lifestyle of having guts to go after your dreams, and finding happiness in your everyday life.
Skimbaco Lifestyle was founded in 2007 by Katja Presnal to inspire you to live life to the fullest – the Nordic way.
I am working long days, long hours, stretching the time and myself at this moment, and I am ready for a vacation of being busy of doing nothing at all (sorry, I don’t even like that song, but now it started playing in my head). Ironically what I am working on is our summer issue of coastal family vacations, and maybe that’s why I admit – I am ready for it! Bring me the beach, let me sit on the dock of the bay (ha, the song in my head just turned into a better one), have a cold drink in my hand and get on a boat and feel breeze on my face and smell the salt of the sea. I just want that coastal family vacation, and I want it now! I am not the only one today who is dreaming of beaches, read Reeta’s post on her site House of Anais of her beach love and see some of her favorite beaches. In the upcoming magazine, Reeta also shares some of her favorite California beaches, and we interviewed her daughter Anaïs, whom Reeta’s blog is named after. In addition to Anaïs, we are featuring 9 other traveling kids, and what they think of moving and traveling to new places. My children and I had several great discussions as we did the interviews together. My family is also going to be in the magazine, my son in the cover, and you will get to know a little bit more about my husband too. It’s a family issue, so I felt it was important that my family is part of it. That’s right, my family helped me in several ways in the making of this issue, and so did Skimbaco’s Instagram “family.” Instagram has been a great buffer for me to get ideas for topics for the online magazine, and it’s Instagram where I get honest feedback what a possible cover image for our magazine could look like (for the last issue I didn’t choose the original picture, after listening the feedback from my Instagram friends). It was also on Instagram where someone said to me that our magazine doesn’t look like it’s for real people, the pictures are too nice, and only the rich can enjoy life the way we do. In reality, we don’t use stock photos in the magazine, in fact, some of the photos are taken with a smart phone! The photos and content is always created by our own team, and in each issue we have two guest writers. Some of the guest writers are famous lifestyle or travel experts, but some are our friends. In each magazine we also feature two Instagram-friends and publish their Instagram photos. If any magazine is real, we are. I also got another comment on a recent Instagram photo. It was “Katja, you live like in a magazine.” I answered, “yes, I do, and it’s called Skimbaco Lifestyle.” And I am just like anyone else, my life is taking kids to school, showing up at work (while it is my home office, it still is work and I have to show up and work), and I wash laundry, make dinner, and go through things everyone else does in life. However, I seize the day. I enjoy my coffee moment, try to make my family laugh with my stupid jokes, make dinner time an adventure and sometimes live somewhat too minimalistic life so we can save money for extraordinary travels (or moving to a new place). Not living life to the fullest and experiencing extraordinary is not an option. And that’s what Skimbaco Lifestyle really is about, and I know I am not the only who lives this way. Last week I wrote about Instagramming with integrity, and today I would like to encourage you to “seize the day” and find the beauty in it. It is easy to look at the #IGtravelThursday photo stream, and feel “I wish I was there right now,” and feel stuck in the place, stuck in time, and just wishing for the getaway. However, most my Instagram-friends post beautiful pictures not just from their travels, but from their own backyards and neighborhoods as well. Your everyday life is exotic to someone else, and it can be the most beautiful thing to you. Our dream this summer was to go to Greece, but since this spring has been quite busy for us, and simply we didn’t have the time to put on travel research and didn’t easily find the flight-hotel-activities combo we were looking for, we dropped the entire plan, and are heading to my family’s summer house in the Turku archipelago in Finland instead. It’s not going to be the luxury coastal trip we dreamed of, but I think it will actually be better: there is no wifi at the summer house, and we will get to see family. There is a private beach, maybe a row boat and a fishing rod. Midnight sun, Nordic nightless night and eating dinners outside. We can visit the cousins, see the aunts and uncles, have three-hour-discussions face to face while nobody is checking their phones. This summer I will seize the day, and go back to my childhood scenes, back to same places, I just wanted to leave when I was growing up, and I already now know that I will “seas the day” on the coast. How are you seizing the day? Share it with us and use #skimbaco for life’s best moments and #igtravelthursday for your travel photos. 
On related news, we won’t be publishing posts during a summer vacation, but Instagram Travel Thursday will still be hosted in many other blogs. Bloggers, join our Facebook group so you can get the linky code even when I am on vacation. 
Not a blogger? Not a problem. Join us at Instagram by using hashtag #igtravelthursday and share your travel photos. 
Reeta @houseofanais
Enjoy your summer in peace and quiet, the archipelago is such a beautiful and calm place to spend it!
Amanda Kendle
Oh!! All these IGTT posts about summer!! I am sitting here in Western Australia with a big coat on and two pairs of socks. In my head I know that we actually get a much longer summer than nearly anywhere in the world but right now, it is cold and my heart is ready to fly north!!!!
Have a great vacation time, Katja!
Leigh Powell HInes
Beautiful post.
YashY
Ah! Unplugging and unwinding sounds pretty good!