This past weekend, something exciting happened. My Dad sent me random, cryptic texts, asking me to call home. My phone had been dead for 15 hours prior, so I had a mild panic attack when I plugged it in and saw I’d missed my Dad’s numerous attempts to contact me. I called home right away, but turns out, my panic was in vain. Instead of professing bad news, my Dad asked if I wanted to visit home this summer, as he had an offer for a free ticket in July (it rocks to have a Dad with a gabillion air miles!) Of course I said yes, and so instead of visiting New England’s beautiful fall foliage in October, I’ll now be joining my family at home in Maine for the 4th of July (which is one of my favorite holidays!) My mom and I immediately started planning day excursions and fun overnights, which of course made me reminisce on last year’s summer trip home. Before I knew it, I was clicking through old blog posts of Peaks Island and Ferry Beach, craving Maine sunshine and salty air. 

Amidst all this travel excitement, KLM reached out to me, and asked if I’d be interested in promoting their Flying View competition.

I said yes for three reasons. 1) I love taking photographs. 2) I love traveling. 3) And I wanted to give you the opportunity to do the same! Anyone in the world can enter the KLM competition, and if you win, you’ll get 200,000 award miles, one year of Platinum status, AND your winning photo will be published on KLM luggage tags around the world (if I were going to win any competition, this would be it).

To enter, all you have to do is upload your favorite travel photos to flyingview.flyingblue.com or on Instagram with the hashtag #Flyingview. You can read more about the competition here. The theme is ‘revisit the world’ which I think is wonderfully broad, and welcomes photos from all corners of the universe. I envision photos of an old, toothless man, licking an ice cream cone on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur with his grandchildren, or a small, dark-haired woman gliding through the quiet glaciers on a kayak in Argentina.

If I had 200,000 air Miles, I don’t know where in the world I would go. But I know where my heart would be shouting at me to visit ;) and I’ll give you a hint – there’s lots of lobster there!

Here are some photos I’m considering entering into the competition (you can post up to 10), all my own personal theme of ‘things I cannot wait to do this summer in Maine!’ :)

^ ^ This usually happens a lot on the first few days, as jet lag has me waking up at the crack of dawn!

^ ^ OK, so maybe I won’t actually entire this photo, but it’s still one of my favorite parts of American summers!

The excitement is real – I cannot wait to go home! I’ll let you know what photos I end up entering into the KLM competition, and I’ll be sure to take loads more this summer in Maine :)

xo Ali

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