Coachella

Earlier this month, I spent a week in California for a work trip to visit a few of our surf vendors and preview the Spring 2019 collection. A couple of my co-workers and I decided to stay through the weekend to attend the Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival. I had always regretted not going to Coachella while I lived in LA, so it was the perfect opportunity to check it off my bucket list. It definitely did not disappoint!

Tiffany, Ashley and I stayed in Palm Springs at the Kimpton Rowan Hotel. We took a shuttle to the festival on Friday and Saturday and skipped Sunday since we had a red-eye flight back to Florida. The art inside the festival was so cool and different - my favorite was the wire-caged buildings that looked like an optical illusion when photographed. The people-watching was next-level, with tons of outfit inspiration. The amount of food vendors was unreal - anything you could ever want, they had. My favorites were the vegan ice cream (cookies & cream with caramel - yum!) and my first Shake Shack experience.

On Friday, we made it to festival around 5pm, just in time to catch Greta Van Fleet, Bleachers, Kygo and my all-time favorite, The Weeknd! He absolutely killed his 2-hour set, playing all of my favorite songs and his voice sounded incredible. I spent his entire show dancing and singing at the top of my lungs! His performance honestly made the entire festival worth it for me! We finally made it back to our hotel at 3am, hoping to sleep in but we were all still on east-coast time and were wide awake to do it all again by 8am!

We spent Saturday morning brunching in downtown Palm Springs and made our way to Coachella around 4pm. We spent some time taking photos, hanging out in the beer garden, then watched Borns, Post Malone and attempted to see Beyoncé. The festival started to get packed around 8pm when everyone began flooding in for Beyoncé. Initially we had a great spot to watch her performance, but as it got closer, it got so congested that my 5'2 self couldn't see anything but the back of other people's heads. Beyoncé was 30 minutes late to her 11pm set, which made the crowd really ancy. When she finally hit the stage, I tried watching a nearby fan's video on his phone since I couldn't even see the screens. After she sang "Drunk In Love" we decided to call it a night and beat the rush back to the shuttle pick up.

On Sunday we found another good brunch spot with bottomless mimosas and went to a pool party at the Ace Hotel. After a few hours lounging by the pool, we made our way back to our hotel and hung out on the rooftop before heading to the airport. It was the perfect way to end the weekend, just relaxing and soaking up the Palm Springs sun. It was an unforgettable trip, both the work half and Coachella!