Travel Vlog✨Sun, Sand, Sea, Snacks! Sisters in Gran Canaria

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. So today we are in Gran Canaria. This is my sister Natty and we're on a little family holiday here. I got 10 days or so of annual leave of work, which is really nice. I sort of managed to chain together some weekends and zero days of annual leave. So we thought we'd make a little trip here and basically I'm just going to vlog my day and show you guys what we're up to. So the plan for today is we're going to go down the south of Gran Canaria to a place called Mas Palomas, where there's a bunch of like sand dunes, it looks absolutely stunning and also there's some really nice beaches. So it's hopefully going to be a nice chill day. I'm planning to do some journaling, some reading and also take some nice photos on the dunes, hopefully wearing this this nice white dress and just going to be relaxing. This is our first full day here in Gran Canaria. Enjoy the sun. Yeah, enjoy the sun. So the reason I wanted to do this holiday is because London has just been permanently grey and rainy, just perpetually London British weather. So I wanted to have a bit of a break and get a bit of sunshine and vitamin D. So hopefully today will provide me a bit of that top up of some sunshine and good vibes. And yeah, let's go. So I'm just packing my bag now. I pack some provisions along for the trip, including sunscreen, sun hat and sunglasses, which are of course my top essentials. And I also pack a relaxed change of clothes for the beach, my bikini, my beloved bullet journal, my Kindle for reading on the beach and also a change of socks, of course, to be ready for absolutely anything and everything that may come our way. I have a quick bite to eat. My mum has made a light snack of some healthy spinach, broccoli, mushrooms and some jamon serrano along with a glass of Barocca, which is a vitamin supplement loaded with vitamin C to keep my immunity up. Nat, do you want to say hi? Hello. So we're just in the car heading over to just tour around the city of Las Palmas for a bit. Las Palmas is the main, biggest city in Gran Canaria with the most stuff going on. It's where we're based at the minute. And after that, we're going to drive down south towards the Maspalomas sand dunes and see the Playa del Inglés, which is one of the most famous beaches in Gran Canaria. I love the atmosphere driving through the city with all the tropical trees, the lush greenery, the backdrop of colourful buildings, literally a 180 degree change from England's currently barren winter landscape. There's a little viewpoint of the sea and volcanic landscapes ahead. We take some pics to remember it all and of course, to pop on Instagram. Feel free to follow me over there if you'd like to see updated pics. So we're by the sea, look at that, and there's the mountains in the background. My microphone keeps falling off. Right, there we go, I think it's fixed now. It's around midday, so it's officially sunscreen reapplication time. UV rays accelerate skin ageing and can cause skin cancers, including melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma. So it's super important to stay protected in the sun by covering up with high UPF clothes, a broad brimmed hat and generously applying and crucially reapplying a high factor broad spectrum sunscreen. One of my favourite sunscreen brands is The Altruist. This is completely non-sponsored by the way, this is just my personal opinion. I love that it's both SPF 50 and also has very high UVA protection. This brand of sunscreen was literally formulated by a dermatologist and they donate most of their proceeds to charity. I love that it's both SPF 50 and also has very high UVA protection. It's super important to check the UVA protection of your sunscreen because the SPF rating only refers to the UVB protection and UVA rays, which are a slightly longer wavelength of UV rays, are responsible for many of the visible signs of skin ageing, including collagen breakdown, wrinkle formation and pigmentation and age spots. UVB rays are more responsible for causing genetic damage and triggering skin cancers in the skin. So you really want to make sure that you have both. My hat is a UPF 50 and I absolutely love the style and the sun protection. I'll link everything down below in case you're interested. We find some ripe prickly pear fruits and despite being advised against it not so gently by some YouTube videos, my dad has a go picking some and my mum enjoys a moment of telling him, I told you so, when he inevitably gets prickled. We head over to Playa de las Canteras, which is the city beach in Las Palmas, get changed and lay down on the black volcanic sand for a bit. It's super glittery, not sure if the camera can do it justice and really capture the glitter and it also sticks all over our legs. After laying out like little grilled sausages for an appropriate duration, we get dressed again and set off down south along the motorway that runs in a circle around the island. The scenery widens out from a tight urban to a broad subtropical dry landscape with sea on the left and volcanic mountains on the right. We pass by several collections of wind turbines and solar panels. The island is often quite windy and also quite sunny so it's really cool to see them making the most of these natural resources to provide renewable energy to the people living here. Also, I just love the cacti here. They're just so so cute and I love the way that all their little arms point up directly to the sun as though they're like saluting the sun. After around 45 minutes drive, we pull up at Playa del Inglés in the south, which literally means the beach of the English and we have a wander around. So we have arrived at Playa del Inglés. Yeah. And we're gonna get some food. There's a load of restaurants behind us so we're gonna check out one of those and there's some music in the background and after getting some food we're gonna head to the beach I think. So otherwise, what food do you want? What food do you want? I want some paella. Paella? Wow. Okay, let's see if we can find some paella. It's unsurprisingly very very touristy here. There are a bunch of shops selling clothes and souvenirs with live music, big crowds. My favourite part are the adorable tiny doves that sniff around and wander around for spare chips and nibbles. We have some lunch and order sardines, sangria and a huge seafood paella which Natty and I share. The paella is a bit too salty to be honest but still tasty. After fuelling up we head to the beach to soak up the vibes for a while before heading to the sand dunes at Mas Palomas. Okay so now we're heading to the sand dunes and gonna check out what it's all about. It's actually coming up to sunset so we're gonna hopefully catch sunset over the dunes and have a little wander around. Also of course it's golden hour for taking photos so we'll take a few snaps as well. So we're here at the dunes. I slip off my white Vivobarefoot geocourt trainers to try to avoid getting them absolutely full of sand and then I pop on some Havainas flip flops which I actually soon fully abandon to go barefoot and stretch out my little toes. Okay let me tell you the sand dunes are honestly incredible and just breathtaking and iconic especially in the golden hour light with the dunes just stretching out to the horizon and the sea. It's just like sand, sea, sun, sky. It's just amazing. I monkey about on the dunes for a bit before finally cleaning up my act to take some proper photos in the sunset. Some of these turn out pretty okay. We sit on the edge of a huge dune to soak in the vibes and I indulge my inner child by throwing some sand about and watch on as the sun sets. Afterwards we finally drive home to the hotel. We grab some supplies at the local supermarket and cook up a meal of steak, mushrooms, spinach and artichokes before finally winding down for bed. I've loved having some time out of busy clinical work to just enjoy life and explore a beautiful new place. Let me know down in the comments where I should go next. What's your favourite place to travel to and why? If you enjoyed this vlog I think you might like this one over here where I share a day of my life doing medicine. Thank you so much for watching. As always take care of yourselves and remember that the journey is the destination. I'll see you in the next video. Bye!