Interview with Sarah Lou Falk on How She’s Dealing with the Pandemic as a Travel Lover

Sarah Lou Falk is the girl behind Instagram account @sarahloufalk and is known for her 90s aesthetics, full of lovely summery retro vibes. Sarah and I decided last year to meet at the Out Jazz festival that’s happening every Sunday at different locations in Lisbon all summer long. After some cocktails and dance moves, we talked about our desire to explore more of the world, but now, the world seems changed. The current pandemic doesn’t allow us to travel anymore, and most events that were supposed to happen this summer are being canceled. How are we travel lovers dealing with that?

How is it for you to stay home and not be able to travel right now?

First of all, it is a good chance to slow down a bit and I really love to spend some longer time at my family’s place at the moment. The year started off quite hectic and I wasn’t able to see them at all so I feel like even if the current times bring a lot of uncertainty and almost all of my plans for this year are canceled, on the positive side the lockdown gives a chance to recharge and refocus on the really important things in life.

You always envy me with your amazing travels in Europe. Why do you love Europe and what are your favorite places within this continent?

I love diversity, each country and each city has its own vibe and own culture. There are endless possibilities and a lot of beautiful destinations! Favorites are really hard. I absolutely love Italy, especially the southern part and Sicily. The landscape is beautiful, the food amazing and I have never been surrounded by more joyful and hospitable people. Moreover, I love Paris (such a cliché) as I lived and studied there some time and absolutely fell in love with the city. Nothing is better than a Sunday at the café Charlot and musée d’Orsay (I absolutely love Claude Monet). Probably one of my new favorites is Copenhagen, which I discovered during this year’s season of cphfw, a beautiful city with amazing restaurants, cafes, museums, and vintage shops. I actually planned to move there this summer but this will remain a dream for now.

I know you’re an ambitious marketing student, currently finishing your master’s degree. How do you usually combine traveling and studying?

You must know the best tricks for us, young travel lovers! My dad once told me: you can´t always be motivated that’s why you have to learn to be disciplined. I guess this pretty much sums it up, even though I definitely had some hard times combining my studies and travels. I just always tried to make it work, even if this meant squeezing in study hours in my hotel room during the night. Another key is definitely planning and setting yourself deadlines without postponing them. It’s funny how much you can do in one day if you do the planning right. And the most important thing is that you have a passion and love everything you do – traveling is a part of my job but also my passion but so are my studies. If you love what you do everything becomes a lot easier and you never get tired of it. And I have to say I do have a crazy sleeping routine, under normal circumstances I am wide awake after 4 to 5 hours maximum and I get bored super easily so I always have to try to keep myself somehow busy – which is currently really hard!

What do you miss the most about traveling?

Exploring new cities, learning new things also about myself, chatting with new people, but also small little moments like sundowners by the sea, beautiful dinner locations, fun night outs … the list is really long. But as simple as it is the feeling of freedom. 

I believe that this pandemic brings us lots of good things, like for us to realize that there’s no necessity to always plan our next trip and keep on going at an enormous pace. It’s okay to stay home and take it slow. How do you feel about this?

Definitely! Especially our generation has never experienced something like this, everything was always possible and we were constantly striving for something more exciting, better, faster… in all parts of our life. I definitely took part in this as well. I really believe that we will travel differently and be able to really appreciate the little things and be present at the moment again. We should all take some steps back and rethink our own balance. I feel like that this pandemic can definitely be seen as a wake-up call and will especially strengthen our commitment to sustainability and a shift to a more mindful lifestyle. So actually trends which have already been there for quite a while will have a lot more impact in the near future and I am excited to see how our generation and also the fast-moving fashion industry is adapting.

What will be the first destination as soon as we are allowed to travel again?

A weekend getaway at the Hotel Loupinet in St. Tropez!

Thank you for having this beautiful conversation with us, Sarah! Make sure to follow her staying home experiences and travels on Instagram @sarahloufalk!