Personalize Your Spring Break!

Allow these Portland women business owners to produce a 5-star experience for your Spring Break! Kelsey with Foreign to Domestic, Travel Advisor extraordinaire, will handle your research and reservations.  Renée Lara Style, Wardrobe expert, will prep and create outfits for your holiday. Cristi with Live Simply, accomplished Personal Concierge, will keep your home running like a fine-tuned machine while you're away creating memories to last a lifetime. Together, we will bring excitement and ease back into your life, allowing you to enjoy quality time with your loved ones.

Packages start at $495.

Offered by:

• Foreign to Domestic (Kelsey)

• Renée Lara Style (Renée)

• Live Simply (Cristi)

Foreign to Domestic:

• Includes Vacation Planning and Booking

• Consultation: 25-minute consultation.

• Planning: 3 quotes for 7 days/6 nights at an All-Inclusive Resort in March or April 2019 within desired budget. (Additional quotes provided at $25/quote.)

• Booking: Accommodations, flights, and round trip airport transfers for 2 adults / 2 children

Renée Lara Style:

• Includes Vacation Wardrobe Styling & Tips for Packing Efficiently

• Consultation: 15-minute consultation.

• Wardrobe Styling: 2 hours of on-site styling / outfitting 1 person for 7 days. Photos of looks and shopping wish list sent within 24 hours post-session.

• Packing Tips

Live Simply:

• Includes Home Management Services

• Consultation: 25-minute consultation.

• Home Management: Live Simply will provide 5 hours of home management services while you’re relaxing on your vacation. We’ll pick up your mail, water your plants, put out / pick up the trash bins and stock your refrigerator / pantry prior to your return.

The Fine Print:

• Packaged rate for 3 services is $495 available to Portland locals for a limited time.

• Packaged rate valued at $770.

• Vacations to be booked for March-April 2019

• Limited to 15-mile radius of Lake Oswego. Additional rates apply for services outside of this area.

  Reach out to Kelsey-

   kelsey@foreigntodomestic.com or (805) 832-0022 for more information.

Oregon: Fly Fishing in Sunriver

The early bird gets the fish. So early one morning we headed to The Hook Fly Shop in the Sunriver village and met up with our professional guide Bryon Salaz. I wondered if his patience was as impressive as his beard, because fishing is not something I’m about to put on my resume when it comes to skills. I had hoped he was ready to step me through everything slowly and maybe a couple of times over. At the shop they fitted us for our waders and our shoes, which I went a size up on for comfort and I felt like a modern day Frankenstein stomping around in those boots for the rest of the day. Though the waders are there to keep the water out, I imagined that I was in for a very very cold day, so my outfit was more of a keep the weather off of me kinda look and not a front page story of an outfitter magazine.

After a one hour drive headed east, possibly south east? We’re not sure and I’m not about to tell you! That’s the thing I respect about what Bryon spoke with us about, if you really love a place that you find, you’re not going to go and post it on the internet for everyone else to go and find. If you want to enjoy this fly fishing trip, you’ll book with Bryon and he will personally take you there. Once we arrived at “the spot” I realized why he brought this subject up. It was a truly unspoiled area, just far enough from the city life and quietly hidden off a side road…or two. Ps. I’m still not telling you where we went.

Once we parked and headed to the edge of the water, I looked up and down the river. There wasn’t another person or car in sight. What a great feeling! We signed up for a tour that not only ended up being a private tour, but we also had the river to ourselves. This lasted for at least another hour, then we saw the first person drive by and then a while after that, another fisherman walked by us, quietly greeting us and continuing on his way. The glorious sun shone down on us and only a couple of times did the wind pick up and I had to turn to hide my face from the cold. It was the perfect day.

The guide stepped us through everything, step by step. Slowly and precisely, but also it felt very personal, he was genuinely excited to get us hooking fish. He looked at our faces to read if we were catching on, then he gave us a couple of examples himself, still talking us through everything. Unfortunately once the fishing pole was in my hands and I was there ready to prove myself, when all of that confidence and the steps from his mini lessons, it seemed as if they had all just floated down the river. It truly took me time and time again to feel almost comfortable doing my own cast into the water, then the mend in the line, then how to point the pole down toward the water, following that with what amount of slack I was supposed to leave before pulling it all back toward me to start over again. I knew I was rushing it, I wasn’t going with the flow and I was attempting to get it all in one try. Bryon was there to reassure me when I had pulled off a cast and when I was mending at the correct times. He was also there to remind me to calm down and just to enjoy myself. It took us only minutes to begin catching our first fish of the day and I knew it would only get better after I stopped flinging my line into the water and if I became more graceful.

So here’s something that really differed from any other fishing that I had done in the past: when the fish bite your line, it is not at all like a tug, but rather something that you really absolutely must be watching very closely. Bryon would say “set!” as in pull back on the pole and I would still be just realizing that that was a fish even biting. It seemed like it could have been the line just slowing down in the water or it getting barely caught on something. But low and behold, I quickly found out I was very very wrong. It’s much quicker than I would have guessed, which is why I think I enjoyed this fishing excursion so much more than any other. Typically I can sit back, pour myself a beer and wait for the whole pole to go diving toward the water. This was a whole nother ball game, which kept things exciting and it kept me focused on what I was doing.

Time actually flew by on our half day excursion. I was worried I was going to be sitting on the sidelines, shivering in the shade, but we were thoroughly entertained the whole time and this is something that we both agreed we would suggest to friends and we’d give it a go again in the future. I highly recommend getting in touch with the shop if you’re ever in or around Sunriver. This would be a fabulous tour for bachelor parties, father and son day trips, you name it! I’m confident that the guys at The Hook Fly Shop will take good care of their customers and the environment that they are taking you in, which we certainly learned more about because of Bryon. It’s important that we are respecting the rivers and lakes that we are fishing in, so please do this smartly! We look forward to our next excursion with this company and we are already pretty set on coming back in 2019, for a full day steelhead fishing trip.

Colombia: Bountiful Birding

I used to think birding was for nerds, but hear me out before you shoot me a side glance with a glare. My mind and my outlook of birding has been changed! I can remember the exact moment when it happened. I was in South Africa on safari and our ranger promptly stopped our jeep to see a bird on a tree, just off the road and perched on a branch, hesitantly looking over at us. The colors from his feet, beak, his wings, to the tip of his tail, it all stopped me and made me reach for my binoculars in the seat beside me to get a better look. I sat there thinking, mother nature, you’ve done it again. What an incredible sight! As you’ll see from my other blog posts, South Africa was a life changing trip for me and I can thank that two quick weeks for my new appreciation for birds.

They are incredible creatures in our world. Always surprising me with their beautiful feathers, different sized wingspans, legs and beaks. The calls that they make are the most intriguing! There’s nothing like it when you’re out in the wild, no noises of cars passing by or just normal city commotion to interrupt your surroundings.

In September I had the pleasure of traveling with Juan Ortiz, cofounder of The Colombian Project (also the owner of these spectacular photos). I’ve never met someone so passionate and so genuinely thrilled about birds and natural in general!! He introduced us to some very special places in Colombia and some equally special guides that share his adoration of Mother Nature’s work in the wilderness.

My first morning on this research trip was an early start, I believe we had to be in the hotel lobby and ready to go by 4:30am? They were all early morning starts, but this was pretty brutal as I had just arrived a few hours ago, because my plane arrived late. Though while I’m on vacation, I don’t mind rising with the sun, as long as there is something exciting happening- and I make sure that there is! Juan had planned for us to meet the rest of our group (other travel agents also coming to learn more about Colombia), as well as our birding guide for the day and then to jump in a large van and head for the mountains above Bogota.

After a couple of hours of going up up up, in the middle of who knows where, we arrived to the hummingbird sanctuary. We arrived shortly after the owner had gone around to each feeder and filled them up with the hummingbirds favorite meal, sugar water! We all stood still and kept our eyes on the feeders, the only movement at first was me shivering #alwayscold. Then before you saw anything, you actually heard them zoom past you, but they were so quick that you didn’t know which way they came and which way they left until they perched themselves on a branch.

Fun fact for you, or for those that don’t know… there are 147 different species of hummingbirds in Colombia. My father has always put out hummingbird feeders, so I was used to seeing our typical species in Oregon and California. I wondered how different they could all possibly be from each other. It only took minutes for us to see several different types. Some with long long tails, some short and stocky, cute little chubby guys! The one type that really amazed me was the sword-billed hummingbird which had a ridiculously long beak. Just how that bird managed to fly around and effortlessly zoom up to the feeder with such grace, was mind boggling!

Another birding morning we were just outside of the center of town in Guaviare. We parked in one corner of the town and began walking across a small pedestrian bridge. Which had just enough room for you to stand on one side of it, while scooters passed by us with the dad driving in the front and at least 2 kids sitting in the back. We looked out on each side of the bridge, scanning the horizon and in the tall grass. I never thought I’d get competitive, but it was exciting! Who would spot the first bird?! Seconds after we arrived the binoculars were already out and I saw an arm pointing out something in the distance.

With close to 1900 species of birds, Colombia is ultimately the place to be if you’re a bird lover! With all of the different and incredible regions across the country, it just depends on what type of itinerary you’re looking to enjoy and we can provide you with the trip. I trust that Juan will take care of any of my clients that I send his way and I look forward to organizing more wildlife focused itineraries!