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I consider myself a travel addict. “Hi, my name is DJ. My last trip was 7 days ago.” I have seen stunning places over the years. And probably like you, I’ve snapped endless photos of sunsets, a few sunrises, buildings, cathedrals and castles along the way. To anyone other than me, these photos produced a lot of yawns and some moments of radio silence. In one word were are BORING! So my subjects over the years have changed moving away from things to people. Primarily MY people like Corbin, Leo and my family and friends. And of course myself. Hello, Selfie?

Last week I spent 7 glorious days in Hawaii. It was my first visit to the Big Island and it will not be my last. My one and only goal for this trip was to do whatever was necessary to hit my reset button. The last six months of my life have been monumentally challenging. Then just recently my Dad died suddenly from a massive heart attack. So instead of vacation days full of sight seeing, shopping and eating. My vacation plan consisted of the following:

1. Sleep
2. Eat
3. Chill out - without worrying about Corbin’s schedule, talking to lawyers, discussing the future, over eating, blowouts, makeup, dry cleaning, bikini waxes, recycling the trash, grocery store lists, appointments, etc. This proved to be challenging until #5 kicked in. Keep reading!
4. Exercise
5. Enjoy an adult beverage
6. Repeat the above as needed

I stuck to my plan and can say that for the first time in a very long time I finally felt as if I had a solid amount of sleep! And of course along the way, I started snapping photos on my iPhone. By the way, do any of you travel with a real camera anymore? I haven’t in years but will soon start shooting with a Leica. I snapped a great shot of the sunrise on my first morning because I woke up at my normal East coast time which is six hours ahead of Hawaii. I’m not a fan of sunrises! I captured many sunset photos, too! All very pretty, but yet still BORING!

On my last day, I took what I can only say are two of my favorite travel photos yet. One is of this fisherman I met at a local fish market. He was getting out of his little Toyota truck as I was walked up. Why do big, giant men drive tiny trucks? Always makes me laugh when I see this. He spoke in a Hawaiian language that my friend Lahela told me was more of a local dialect. If you look closely you can see that his eyes are almost gold in color. And then there are the tattoos and the fists full of yellow fin tuna. I could not stop checking this guy out. He was a site to behold. I kept trying to calculate how many dollars worth of sushi he was holding in his hands. Not to mention the shear size of this guy! Check out those man boobs! He and his friends had been fishing about 10 miles off the coast all night and were delivering the load of fish to the market.

A picture is worth a thousand words. This one is for sure. I only wish I would have put a mic on him (not sure what I would have clipped it to) and gotten his story on camera! Guess that means, I should just go back,right? I mean, it is time for another trip. I’ve been home for seven days as I mentioned above. That’s long enough, don’t you think?

Oh, so you want to see my second photo? It’s on my Instagram page at DJ Duckworth. This one is all about the clouds and is not BORING in the least.

Keep up with DJ and her adventures by following her on Facebook at I Am DJ Duckworth and on Twitter @mrsdjduckworth. She can be found on Instagram at DJDuckworth. You should follow her there as well. DJ lives in Manhattan with her son and the worlds most amazing wiener dog, Leo - woof, woof!