Madrid | Solving Travel Anxiety

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll have seen that I was over in Madrid earlier this month with my sister Lauren (@laurencrowe88) courtesy of the lovely Jen (@jens_travel_inspo) and I wanted to do a little post to share with you what Jen does and what we got up to there! Jen is an independant travel counsellor and organised our flights and accomodation for us but this collaboration was based purely on instagram so although this was a gifted trip there was absolutely no obligation whatsoever to post a blog post. I just wanted to share because a, she’s a lovely girl and what she does is amazing – I truely believe that. And b, as someone with anxiety, travelling with Jens guidance made my experience 10,000 times better and less stressful so if there’s anyone else who suffers out there then hopefully she can help you too!

THIS WAS A GIFTED TRIP

Madrid | Solving Travel Anxiety

First of all, why Madrid? We had the choice of Marbella and Madrid and we had been to Marbella the previous year. So despite being VERY tempted by the thought of Gambas Prawns we decided to go somewhere new that if I’m honest, we both agreed would look better on our instagram feeds . .  yes this is what my life is like people. Can we have a moment of appreciation for the dedication to the gram?! So once we decided where we wanted to go, the dates we were free and sent over a copy of our passports to Jen that was literally the only finger lifting, if you can even call it that, that we had to do in terms of the trip AT ALL.

Jen organised the entire trip even down to checking us into our flights, moving our seats so we were together and adding priority boarding, oh and let us not forget the free lounge passes she got us. This was perfect for someone like me who gets stressed and anxious in airports because I was away from the busyness and noise and could relax with a cup of tea in a calm environment. When we got to Madrid there was a man in a suit with a sign for us ready to take us directly to the hotel and if we were ever unsure about anything we could use the travel counsellor app which shows a full breakdown of our trip with the flights, check in passes ( so you don’t have to print them off) car collection info for both ways – this was really handy because when we were on our last day we didn’t have to work out how we’d get to the airport and how long to leave, she’d already worked it all out and booked it so we just knew we had to be at the hotel reception at 3pm. It also had vouchers and info for any excursions we had planned, for us it was our flamenco dancing & tapas night and if we had any issues Jen was constantly available on whatsapp. Basically she’s an angel!

One more thing to note! She also sent over a pack before our trip with print outs of all of the things on the app, all vouchers and info incase you like to have the physical forms and some cute matching passport covers for me and Lauren! Then when we got home, she’d sent us each a postcard to say she hoped we got home safely and had a great trip, how lovely is that!? And do you want to know the best thing about this all? To use Jen and not do it yourself, it doesn’t cost you a penny more. Jen does all of the hard work using her contacts within the industry to get the best deals, she knows the best hotels and she can get you upgrades and lounge passes and added extras like this! She also takes all of her commission from the companies involved and not from you the traveller, so there really is no reason not to use her! I have had my eyes opened and now I won’t travel without her again!

If you want to get in touch with Jen then you can reach out to her on her instagram @jens_travel_inspo! Here’s some pretty pictures from Madrid!