Happy Monday!
I am back from vacation (and then another week of blog vacation….!)
It has been a crazy time around these parts!
I really need to learn to multitask one of these and get my sheyite together…… perhaps I’ll add that to my upcoming New Years Resolution list for the 15th year in a row?

But!
I am ready to kick off some London Recap Posts!
So today I’m sharing where we stayed and my favorite travel tip!

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Kip had a work conference booked for London for the end of October to beginning of November, and the second I heard the words London come out of his mouth, I worked on convincing him that I needed to tag along 🙂
We normally wouldn’t spend a full week in a city, but with work being during the weekdays, we made it a Saturday to Saturday trip to ensure we’d have some time together.
For that long of a trip, I normally would have ventured into VRBO and Air BnB options, but since work was part of the occasion, we did a hotel.
We booked through hotels.com since that is what Kip using for his work travel as opposed to always staying at a Marriott/Sheridan/etc, and luckily we were able to redeem free nights through his hotels.com points!
After researching and talking to one of my friends sisters who has lived in London for over 10 years, I knew I wanted to stay in the West End area and we settled on Mayfair staying at The St. James Hotel & Club Mayfair.

Something I always look for – other than being in a nice area that is closet to all of the places we want to visit – is that it isn’t smack on the main road, IF possible.  In a city like London, which can feel like NYC, I don’t want to it to sound or feel like it’s Times Square right outside the window!
The St. James is tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac, right behind the Ritz, but tucked off of Picadilly and the main street.  It is in a gorgeous area and near tons of great shopping.  It was so easy to walk to most areas or a quick uber or tube ride if not (we realized Uber was pretty much the same price as the tube, but you got a pretty view along the way! Actually, the black cabs were the best – the drivers were sweet, knowledgable and chatty, and also got the pretty view)
I loved that it was a boutique hotel with just 60 rooms, too.
And our room, though tiny, was WAY bigger than I expected, and the bathroom was huge with double sinks and a big soaker tub.  I was preparing myself for some of the NY hotel rooms I’ve seen and this was 2x what I was expecting.
They also have a Michelin Star restaurant!
But…… my palate (much like the most recent RHOD episode) was not well suited for a London Michelin experience….. there wasn’t anything on the menu I wanted to partake in so we opted for Italian or Asian most nights! (and a Mexican recommendation one night too…..)
But I digress……
I highly recommend it!
And I thought it was so, so cute!
They had a wonderful staff, loved the room, and loved having breakfast in the big beautiful lounge area off of the little lobby.

Other hotels that came highly recommended : 
Sloane Street Hotel, Dean Street Townhouse, B&B Belgravia, Lime Tree Hotel, and if your budget allows the “big” hotels, The Corinthia Hotel, The Connaught, The Dorchester.
A great website to search adorable + amazing  boutique hotels is Secret Places.  I loved several of these but they were booked up when we were looking to book! Again, that came recommended from my friends sister who lives there who gave incredible trip tips and rec’s!

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So, onto my #1 FAVORITE and BEST Travel tip that I could EVER give anyone.
This is especially helpful in foreign cities where you have no idea where you are or where you are going and no sense of direction!
(Ask anyone, I am a freak about directions.  I have a crazy good sense of direction and always like to know where I am – so this is amazing to get a lay of the land in a place you have never been.)
It’s especially helpful if you don’t speak the same language too or are in a place where all of the street names are never visible or also impossible to pronounce or remember (Italy for example…..This was a huge help for us on previous trips to Venice/Florence/Rome, when we went to Amsterdam, etc.)

So! Use your MAPS in your iPhone.
And use the FAVORITE “Heart” feature to your hearts content.
First thing I do is “Favorite” the hotel we’ll be staying at so you always know how to get back to that.

Then, I like to “favorite” any attractions or landmarks or museums or ANYTHING that you have on your list of places you want to go.  It’s so nice to see everything laid out on a map to see how far things are. This is great for planning what activities to group together each day of a trip and which ones to separate.
When you open your map, you’ll be able to perfectly see everything that you have marked!
I also LOVE it for “favoriting” all of the shopping and RESTAURANT destinations that have come recommended from people.  It is SO helpful to have everything all laid out for you to see, so you never have to try to remember what someone recommended or if you are close to any place you wanted to visit or try.
You can use this to see how to use ALL public transportation, or use it to see how long the drive/uber will be, or see how long of a walk it will be.
It is SO nice when you are leaving a landmark or museum (I really don’t like museums…..ugh but I try…. ) and are ready for lunch to open up your Maps and see if any of the places you have “Favorited” are close by! Or just to see in general which other items on your list are close or if it’s a pretty park close by that you can walk through to get back to the hotel instead of taking a train or an uber for example.
This will also make you learn the city so much faster, in my experience, and you’ll get your bearings for the new place in a way you wouldn’t otherwise!

Note: a key part of this is to make sure one person pays for the international plan so you have access always to the maps on your phone while you are abroad……it saves countless hours of headache and being lost! It’s worth the extra $10/day or whatever it is if you don’t have an international plan on your phone!

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And for COATS!
This was my first “big” trip anywhere (i.e. abroad) when the weather was COLD!
ughhhhh……. 
We barely missed the warm weather, but since it was November this was not surprising and it was kind of nice to have a little bit chilly weather.  They were putting up Christmas decorations while we were there!
I brought two coats – a more casual navy quilted coat for daytime and a dressier camel coat from Zara.
I’m glad I was able to bring both, although having the dressier one definitely was not necessary.
Here I am modeling my RL Ralph Lauren quilted coat, windblown on a chilly day outside of Tower Bridge.

….. here’s a prettier shot of the bridge :
but I’ll share more of the pretty shots (you know me, there aren’t many…..)
and what we did later this week!

And here’s another view after I escaped the British History Museum (I’m telling you….. they are REALLY not my thing……)

And freezing my tush off in St. James Park, with this pretty view less than a 5 minutes walk from the hotel.

….. and when your husband only takes one photo with you ALL week….
you substitute a bear…..

They make several different versions of this coat, so I linked a bunch below!
Runs true to size!
This one is identical just with different pockets. 
And on crazy good sale!

actually, tons of these are on sale with the Nordstrom Fall Sale! 

OH! And my OTK boots are a Forever21 knock off that they bring back year after year and I LOVE.
I am wearing my true size.