If you’ve met my mom and heard her voice or eaten her cooking, you can tell she’s a Trini. Though I’m Trini-born as well, being raised in the US means most people don’t realize that. But if you’ve wondered about my year-round-tan or curves, heard my pepper mouth or the soca music playing, that’s the Trini in me coming out.
We moved to the States when I was three, and I didn’t return to Trinidad until I was grown. But now, we make the journey home every few years. Coordinating with our best friends and family members, we plan our Carnival vacation for months in advance, and count down to our two weeks away. Trinidad allows us to relax and rage unlike no other, share our time between poolside and parties, and all of the sunshine and soca music anyone could ever want. I’m looking forward to sharing our vacation with y’all, and introducing you to my Trinidad.
We flew United from LAX to Houston, where our best couple friends met us for happy hour, and the next 6 hours to Port of Spain. With a late-night landing, Customs took forever, but you might as well get on Trini time from the start. We headed to our house to greet family, eat and sleep, and then headed right back to Piarco Airport for the first flight in the morning, the island-hopper over to Tobago for a few days by the sea.
With our Trini trip in mind, I had gifted Erin this weekender and scored one for myself, too! A ton of my girlfriends have (and love) this bag- with good reason. It’s carry-on compliant, but expandable, and can hold everything you’d ever need comfortably. Beloved Thread did an amazing job customizing them for us. (That said, I’d be buying us these if I was shopping now.)
The flight to Tobago is only 35 minutes on a wee little plane. I’ll honestly say that we spent longer drinking piña coladas in the open-air Tobago airport bar waiting for our rental van than we did in actual transit. After a short drive to our condo, we beelined for the backyard pool- I’d worn my bikini under my romper, so I couldn’t strip and sunscreen fast enough. Erin and I turned on the soca, and it was promptly poolside playtime, complete with a dance party and braid bar, while the men made a store run. It was vacation time and we were beyond ready to relax and soak in the Trini sunshine.
weekender (also loving 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), F21 romper (similar), Target bikini (similar, 2, 3)
Our condo was family owned, and the location was perfection. When you can hear the waves from where you stand, it’s no hassle to walk down to the beach for the afternoon. So when the men returned with supplies, we packed the cooler and did exactly that. We had the local beach mostly to our little family… David and I, our besties Erin and Craig, my mom, my auntie (her sister) Sandy and her husband, my uncle Winnie. We made quite the crew visiting Tobago, and would only grow upon the return to Trini mainland.
As the sun started to dip, we walked home from the beach. We had a nice little cocktail hour, cooling off and cleaning up for dinner. We loaded up the party van for a local seafood restaurant- there’s not much on Tobago. We toasted with sangria, and laughed over grilled lobsters, shrimp, fish, and veggies. We all turned in early that bed that night… we had lots of vacationing up ahead of us!
loveRavayna
