10 days in the Dominican Republic

Tan and I recently visited the Dominican Republic for the first time! We went for a project that we are working on with a hotel there (I will post more about that when the project is launched). I was thoroughly impressed with this island to say the least. I wanted to share what we loved about it and also what we would have done differently. Enjoyeee!

Our travels started on May 19 with a flight from HNL to SFO, then from SFO to Newark, and then finally from Newark to Punta Cana! Each flight was 5 hours long. That sucked. We were zombies but we finally made it. Our driver met us there and took us to the Occidental Hotel where we would stay for the rest of our trip. We got to the hotel, got a quick bite to eat, and then took a 6 hour nap haha. WAY TO KICK OFF THE ADVENTURE RIGHT?!

The hotel was a DREAM. We were in the "Royal Level" and had access to our own private beach and fancy restaurant (that we ate at 203,948,572,039,485 times. It was soooo good haha.

We spent the next day organizing the shoots for the rest of the week. We met the girl who was organizing the whole thing (Almu) and the rest of the influencers that were part of the project. They were from all over the world. We had people from Moscow, Montreal, Chicago, Colorado, and Spain. By the end we were all a little fam bam.

Day 2 was spent shooting ALL day. Since we were working side by side with the hotel on this project we were able to coordinate the DOPEST shoots. They were the absolute best to work with. We went parasailing, sailing, had breakfast on the beach and chilled at the pool. I think I went through every single one of my batteries.

The next couple days were spent shooting at the hotel. I couldn't have asked for a better +1 than Tan. He shot me all day everyday and the footage/photos all turned out so good.

Thursday was by far my favorite day. We boated out to Saona Island which is just a few miles off the coast. It was the cutest island in the world. The picture of me laying with the little black dog was shot on that island. It was your classic "deserted island". Just white sandy beaches, millions of palm trees and the cutest little painted houses. We spent the entire day there. Instead of taking the normal motor boat back to the main island, we spent 2 hours on the biggest catamaran I had ever been on. It was one of the most relaxing experiences of my life. Big blue ocean, calm winds, music, friends, and tons of diet coke. It was surreal. I EVEN GOT TO HOLD A STAR FISH GUYSSSSS. (if you go make sure to not take them out of the water so they don't die!)

On Friday we visited a Cenote (those big craters with the bluest water) called Hoyo Azul. It was super sick. The only problem was that we only got to enjoy it for about 20 minutes. The park was kind enough to let us in before they opened (we had to beg and plead) but as soon as our 20 minutes was up, the cenote was FLOODED with people. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong. But if we could have just had it to ourselves for a taddddd longer I would've been a much happier gal. We ended up getting some dope shots in that short time tho.

Overall, the trip was an actual dream. Occidental was an amazing place to stay. And Punta Cana in general was absolutely beautiful. The only thing that I would have changed is being able to see more of the town outside the resort. Since we were there on a project we had to do a lot of filming inside the resort, which was great, but very unlike us when we travel. We love to interact with the people in the streets and get more of a sense for what the actual country is like. When we go back we will make sure to do that.

Thanks for reading, k love you byyeeee.

Here's some more iPhone shots from the trip :):)