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The Real Adventure: Why Your Imperfect Trip Beats Instagram's Perfect Fantasy
Hello Beautiful People,
Welcome to our first blog post! We've just launched our website and are thrilled to share our jewelry with the world. We want to foster a genuine community here, and in these posts, we'll talk about life, styling, and the things that actually matter—jewelry included.
This month, we're diving into something that's been on my mind: the gap between Instagram travel and actual travel. You know, the difference between what we think traveling will be like (romantic cobblestones, perfect lighting, channeling our inner Jane Birkin) and what it actually is (sweaty, tourist-packed streets and crowded cafes).
But here's the thing: the real version might actually be better if we allow ourselves to let go of our expectations and learn to embrace what's actually in front of us.
We've all been there: scrolling through travel content that makes everywhere look like a movie set. The perfectly tousled hair catching golden hour light, the effortlessly chic outfit that somehow survived a twelve-hour flight, the café table positioned just so with a croissant that's never actually eaten. It's beautiful, aspirational, and completely divorced from reality.
Here's what they don't show you: the twenty-seven takes it took to get that "candid" shot, the fact that the influencer is wearing a coat in July because it photographs better, or that the charming cobblestone street is actually a tourist trap where a coffee costs fifteen euros.
This isn't about being cynical—it's about something more important. When we mistake the fantasy for the destination, we rob ourselves of the real adventure. The messy, imperfect, genuinely surprising experience of actually traveling.
The Instagram Trap: When Fantasy Becomes the Goal
Social media has turned everyone into the director of their own fake movie. People curate their lives to look like film stills, complete with perfect lighting and strategic poses. But here's what they're not showing you:
• The 20 minutes spent finding the right angle
• The anxiety about whether the content is "good enough"
• The fact that they're experiencing their trip through a screen, not their eyes
• The pressure to make every moment "content-worthy"
• The exhaustion of performing happiness instead of feeling it
We build these fantasies because we need them. They give us something to look forward to, something to dream about during mundane Tuesday afternoons. The problem isn't the dreaming—it's when we mistake the dream for a promise.
This is what happens when we confuse the map for the territory. The curated version becomes more real to us than the actual place. We end up chasing someone else's experience instead of having our own.
The Alternative: Choosing the Unfiltered Path
What if, instead of following the Instagram trail, you chose somewhere that hasn't been packaged for social media consumption? What if you picked the second city, the lesser-known neighborhood, the restaurant that doesn't have perfect lighting but serves incredible food?
Instead of Santorini's crowded blue domes, what about the equally stunning but less photographed coastlines of Croatia or Malta? Instead of Barcelona's tourist-packed Gothic Quarter, what about Estonia's medieval Tallinn with its cobblestone streets and Baltic charm? Instead of Amsterdam's canal-side crowds, what about Utrecht's medieval charm and local life?
These places offer something Instagram can't: genuine discovery. When you choose the unfiltered path, you give yourself the gift of surprise. That café you stumble into isn't famous for being photogenic—it's just genuinely good. The street you wander down isn't lined with people recreating the same shot—it's where people actually live their lives.
You might find an incredible vintage shop, a local market that becomes your trip's highlight, or a viewpoint that takes your breath away precisely because you weren't expecting it. These discoveries feel different because they're yours. You can't Google them beforehand, and you can't compare your experience to thousands of others.
And yes, real life still happens when you're traveling. You might get lost in a neighborhood that feels sketchy, have your wallet pickpocketed, or find yourself crying in a train station because nothing is going according to plan. But here's what Instagram doesn't teach you: these moments often become the stories you tell for years. The kindness of strangers who help you when you're lost, the resourcefulness you discover when your plans fall apart, the way a terrible day can pivot into an unexpected adventure when you stop fighting it and start flowing with it.
The goal isn't to seek out misfortune, but to understand that the messy, imperfect, sometimes difficult moments are part of what makes travel real. They're proof that you're actually living your life, not just curating it.
Let's be honest about something else: as a tourist on a short trip, you're not going to experience "real life" in a place unless you know people there. And that's perfectly fine. The world today is more accessible for travel than ever before, which means most destinations are packed during high season—and many places thrive on that tourist business. Instead of feeling guilty about being a tourist, embrace it.
You're not pretending to be a local when you visit for a week. You're a visitor, and there's something beautiful about that temporary relationship with a place. The key is being a conscious tourist rather than a performative one. Eat at the touristy restaurant if the food looks good, but talk to your server. Visit the famous landmark, but also notice the details that don't make it into photos. Buy the souvenir that makes you smile, not the one that will look best on your shelf.
The authenticity isn't in pretending you belong somewhere you don't—it's in being genuinely present for the experience you're actually having.
The Deeper Truth: Fantasy vs. Reality in Everything We Do
This isn't really about travel—it's about how we relate to our own lives. When we constantly measure our reality against curated fantasies, we'll always come up short. Not because our lives aren't good enough, but because we're comparing real life to art.
The goal isn't to stop dreaming or become cynical about beauty. It's to develop what we might call sophisticated appreciation—the ability to enjoy the fantasy while living comfortably in reality.
You can love Before Sunrise and still have a meaningful conversation with a stranger on a train, even if it's not perfectly scripted. You can enjoy Emily in Paris while knowing that real Parisians don't wear designer outfits to the boulangerie or stumble into dream jobs without speaking French. You can appreciate the aesthetic of that perfectly curated feed while knowing that your own messy, imperfect trip is more honest and probably more fun.
The jewelry we wear, the places we go, the experiences we have—they don't need to be perfect to be meaningful. They just need to be ours.
What We're Wearing: Real Jewelry for Real Adventures
Just like travel, jewelry is better when it's authentic. These pieces are designed for actual life, not just the perfect photo. They're the antithesis of fast fashion accessories—the kind of throwaway pieces bought solely for a single Instagram moment before being discarded.
The Everyday Necklace: Solid, delicate, enduring. Like the best travel memories, it gets better with time and wear. Elegant enough for an unexpected dinner invitation, sturdy enough to survive being yanked over your head in airport security lines. This is jewelry that lives with you, not just poses for you.
Versatile Earrings: Pack flat in any jewelry case, dress up a simple outfit or complement something more elaborate. Small enough to be practical, distinctive enough to show your personality. These are the earrings that work whether you're exploring cobblestone streets or having an impromptu dinner—real jewelry for real moments, not the kind of statement pieces that only work in perfect lighting with professional styling.
The Statement Bracelet: For when you feel like jazzing things up. Sometimes you need that one piece that elevates everything else, that makes you feel a little more glamorous even when you're just wandering through a local market. This isn't about creating a fantasy version of yourself for social media—it's about carrying something beautiful with you that sparks a little joy, a piece that reminds you to celebrate the moment you're actually in.
This Month's Playlist: Songs for Real Wandering
Because the best travel soundtrack isn't just café classics—it's music that makes you want to wander and maybe dance, but mostly just soak up those in-between moments when nothing Instagram-worthy is happening but everything feels perfect anyway:
1."Drifting In and Out" - Porcelain Raft
2."Sunny" - Boney M
3."Strange Conversations" - Automatic
4."Fingertips" - The Brian Jonestown Massacre
5."Moonlight Desires" - Gowan
6."La forêt" - Lescop
7."Je t'aime... moi non plus" - Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot
8."Summertime" - Ella Fitzgerald
9."Watermelon Man" - Herbie Hancock
10."Whirl" - Soft Kill
11."Pretend" - Alex G
12." When the Sun Hits" - Slowdive
Listen while planning your next real adventure—tourist traps and authentic discoveries alike.
What We're Reading & Watching: Fantasy vs. Reality in Art
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway - Paris in the 1920s, but the real version with poverty, cold apartments, and actual human struggles. Still romantic, just honest about it. Hemingway shows us that even the most mythologized places have unglamorous realities—and that's what makes them human.
Two for the Road (1967) - Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney's relationship unfolds through multiple trips across Europe. It perfectly captures how the same places can feel completely different depending on where you are in life. But let's be honest—even their fights look glamorous because it's Audrey Hepburn in perfectly tailored outfits. The film acknowledges its own artifice while still being deeply moving.
Before Sunrise (1995) - Jesse and Céline wandering Vienna all night, having real conversations instead of taking selfies at landmarks. It's the most "realistic" travel romance, except they're both impossibly articulate, attractive people who somehow look good after walking around all night. Even this "authentic" portrayal sets unrealistic expectations—just different ones.
The point isn't to avoid these beautiful fantasies, but to understand them as art, not instruction manuals. Real travel involves more awkward silences, bad hair days, and wondering if that street food was a mistake. And that's exactly what makes it yours.
Final Thoughts: The Real Adventure
Travel, like jewelry, is better when it's real. The perfect Instagram moment might get you likes, but the imperfect real moment gets you stories. And stories, unlike likes, can last a lifetime.
Pack light, expect chaos, bring a real camera, and wear jewelry that makes you feel like yourself—even when you're lost in a foreign city eating questionable street food. The real adventure is always better than the one you imagined, precisely because you couldn't have imagined it.
The goal isn't to avoid beauty or stop dreaming. It's to find the beauty in what's actually happening, not just what we think should be happening. Your messy, imperfect, genuinely surprising trip is worth more than a thousand perfect photos of someone else's fantasy.
With love and realistic expectations,
Nicole Couronne
P.S. If you enjoyed this post, let us know! Real feedback is always better than perfect silence.