All right. I've made up mind. I'm saving all my pennies, and will one day visit the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka'upulehu. I've never been to Hawaii, and it' s on my bucketlist. In my opinion, the hotel's Instagram feed makes plain old lettuce look simply divine.

http://instagram.com/fshualalai

I'll have that salad with this cocktail.

http://instagram.com/fshualalai

And then I'll sit here.

http://instagram.com/fshualalai

And if you want, you can swim with the fish. That may actually freak me out a little, but I still want to go and have my kids swim with fish.

http://instagram.com/fshualalai

But, back to the food.  The hotel specializes in farm-to-table cuisine.  They host a farm-to-table luau weekly.  These heirloom tomatoes look so good that my mouth is watering just looking at them.

http://instagram.com/fshualalai

Yes, I know. I'm obsessed with Four Seasons Instagram accounts. They share such great cocktails and food on IG, and you can't gain weight looking at photos. Like I said. I want to go to Hawaii one day, and this will be my vacation savings goal. The social media team has convinced me that this destination is worth visiting.

You can learn more about the Four Seasons Hualalai and plan your own  family vacation on its website. I fell in love with the day-by-day agenda for families.

And in other local luxury hotel news. The Umstead Hotel and Spa in my hometown has a new pastry chef. You can read my article about that on Examiner.Com. I can't wait to sample some of his desserts. 

Join us for #IGTRAVELThursday

It's been a long winter in Raleigh this year. We were out of school for ice two days ago. Our tenth school day we've missed this winter for ice or snow. We're not used to this in the South. As a result, I've been turning to my Instagram account to escape somewhere tropical and sunny.

How does this view look?

@FSPuntaMita Instagram account And let's pretend this mango margarita is in our hands.

I love to follow The Four Seasons Punta Mita on Instagram, and apparently, this hotel in paradise likes to make margaritas. I say, "How quickly can I get there?"

I've not personally been to The Fours Seasons Punta Mita, but it is on my dream list. The resort is about 45 minutes from Puerto Vallarta.  Every Saturday night as a child, I heard Julie on The Love Boat say, "And our next stop is Puerto Vallarta."  I've not been there either, but my gut tells me I would want to go straight to this resort once I got off the plane.

The Four Seasons Punta Mita recently renovated its rooms, and it is very family-friendly.  You can have a tropical drink by the pool, and so can your mini-me.

@FSPuntaMita Instagram Account

I fell in love with big and small drink photo this week on Instagram. It gets my vote as a favorite in my feed.

Are you feeling tropical today?

@FSPuntaMita Instagram Account

What tropical drink would you order?

Do you have a great Instagram travel story to share? Read the linky rules below and join us this week (but don’t forget to grab our logo {here} and link to at least one of hosts in your post). If you are not a blogger, but have an Instagram account tag your lovely travel moments with #IGTravelThursday. No blog, no Instagram? You can still join in the fun by reading our IG-related travel stories and by giving us some feedback love!  If you want to host the IG Travel linky on your blog so that your readers can easily find our posts, you may use this,  get the InLinkz code

I spent the better part of New Year's Day analyzing things. At the request of my husband, I had to catch up on tracking my expenses. That caused me to notice that I bought a lot cupcakes in 2013. When I wanted to take a break from my expenses, I spent some time looking at my past Instagram photos, and studied Statigram statistics. It was not hard to notice that I not only spent a lot of money on cupcakes, but I also put my sweet tooth indulgences on Instagram.


This pink cupcake is currently the cupcake IG star of my feed.  No other cupcake got the attention that this sweet delight from Disney's Grand Floridian did on Instagram in 2013. The cupcake was good, but not as tasty as this cupcake that I devoured in Raleigh earlier in the year.


But yet, this cupcake did poorly in my IG feed. It made a debut at 6:49 pm on Thursday, Feb.28, 2013 with 11 likes. No one said, "Yum!" or "You're going to get fat!" or anything at all about the cupcake. I don't know what my follower numbers were in February, but my guess is that this photo was ignored by, at least 250 of you, when you scrolled through it on your feed.

We always want to make ourselves better so I started studying more of my photos, and looking at my engagement to see how I can improve this year. I also dug a little deeper into stats. Yes, I was avoiding those finances at all costs. For the first time, I took note of when my stats suggested would be the best time to post photos.

What is the Best Time to Post to Instagram?




For me, stats show that the afternoon from 12 pm to 5 pm on Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday is ideal. Thursday and Friday works best at 5 pm. Wednesday works best around 12 pm.

Guess what? I rarely post during these times at all unless I'm traveling because I'm usually at the bus stop, helping with my son's homework, breaking up sibling fights, prepping dinner, and living a very ordinary life as a mom.  I also miss a lot of your photos during this time frame, too because I am hardly ever looking at any photo this time of day.

These stats made me realize that I'm missing out on engaging with you so I'm going to try to post at different times in 2014, if possible. I'm not always consistent either due to the demands of motherhood, and I think we all know that consistency is important to build relationships. Katja discussed this topic in her Instagram book this year.

Many of my Skimbaco colleagues do a "Good Morning" photo every day. Unfortunately, I just don't get out enough or take good enough scenic photos to make that type of consistency work for me.  I am going to continue my #HinesSightBlogNC every weekend, but I've got to find the right time of day. I was doing Saturday around 10 am, but Statigram says 8 am is better.I'm still in bed at 8 am so that's not good. I may now shoot for Sunday afternoon around 4 pm.

I also did something else for fun as an experiment. I took the same photo, edited it differently for IG, and posted it on Wednesday, January 1 at 3:10 pm.




According to my stats, Wednesday is not the best day for me to post to Instagram. It appears to the be lightest day for my engagement. And, of course, this Wednesday just happened to be a holiday. But, already the photo has performed better this time around than last time.

Is the photo more appealing now that the focus is closer in on the cupcake? Do you think timing makes a difference?

What time of day do you use Instagram the most? How often do you view photos?

Let's start a discussion.


Join us for #IGTRAVELThursday. 


Do you have a great Instagram travel story to share? Read the linky rules below and join us this week (but don’t forget to grab our logo {here} and link to at least one of hosts in your post). If you are not a blogger, but have an Instagram account tag your lovely travel moments with #IGTravelThursday. No blog, no Instagram? You can still join in the fun by reading our IG-related travel stories and by giving us some feedback love!  If you want to host the IG Travel linky on your blog so that your readers can easily find our posts, you may use this,  get the InLinkz code

The countdown is on for Christmas.This will be our last #IGTRAVELThursday until after the holidays so I wanted to end this week with you saying, "AWWWW!"  I have four photos to share this week that I think you will like. 

The Cozy Photo:




I fell in love with this photo from @FairmontHotels. This is the lovely lobby of Fairmont Le Château Montebello in Quebec, Canada. It looks so cozy. 









The Cute Photo:




Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver got my attention with this cute mug immediately. They really got my love when they said it was an eggnog cocktail. I love eggnog. They shared the recipe with @foodandwinemag for #FWCookbook.  

Recipe on Instagram
4 SERVINGS Ingredients: 4 large organic free run eggs 4 oz organic liquor cane sugar 1 tsp of nutmeg 12 oz of organic whole milk 8 oz of organic heavy cream 8 oz of spiced bourbon, to spice the bourbon empty one bottle of good bourbon to a large mason jar. Add one, split, vanilla pod, one cinnamon stick and twenty or so allspice berries. Close lid tightly, shake, and rest for a minimum of twenty four hours in the fridge. Strain the bourbon back to its bottle and keep chilled until ready for use. Method: 1. Measure all the ingredients and have each item chilled and ready to use before beginning this recipe! 2. Crack the egg into a large blender. 3. Place lid on with the centre removed. 4. Turn on to lowest speed. Allow the egg to incorporate for about thirty seconds. 5. Slowly add the sugar, follow with the bourbon adding a couple ounces at a time. 6. Follow up with the whole milk by poring it slowly into the mixture and finish with the heavy cream. 7. Once all these ingredients are in, continue to blend for about thirty seconds and slightly increase the speed, be careful to not over flow the mixture. 8. Once finished, pour the liquid contents into chilled glasses of your choice and dust with some finely grated nutmeg. For best results allow the egg Nog to rest in the fridge for at least an hour. 9. Serves four large glasses.

Can you say Merry Christmas to me now that I can make this for the holidays. But, mine won't be as cute because I don't have a mug like this. I love the Four Seasons Vancouver, and was a guest in April 2005, a few weeks before I found out I was pregnant with my first child. Happy memories! 

The Classy Photo: 




The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, North Carolina exudes luxury and class. I celebrated the holidays with two foodie blogging friends this week because neither of them had been to the hotel for tea, and I had not been for tea there in many years. Ron of FoodilicioiusFollies and Kristen, a food blogger for Visit Raleigh, and owner of her own blog, Gadabout Food, keep readers up to to date on Triangle food happenings. From food trucks to the latest restaurant news, they have the Triangle covered. Read more about our tea experience on the Visit Raleigh blog. I'm typically a scone lover, but for this tea, I was all about the tea sandwiches and the French Macarons.Top-notch. Tea is served Wednesday through Sunday in the hotel lobby. My friends were nice enough to give me the couch with the view of the Christmas tree, which was the perfect spot for this IG photo. 




The Cuddly Photo




Oh, I'm in love with this face. This is Stanley, and he is the new canine greeter for the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta, Canada.  He will welcome Fairmont guests to the Canadian Rockies.  Let's all say it together, "AWWWWW!"

HAVE a MERRY CHRISTMAS. See you on Instagram!

Join us for #IGTRAVELThursday. 


Do you have a great Instagram travel story to share? Read the linky rules below and join us this week (but don’t forget to grab our logo {here} and link to at least one of hosts in your post). If you are not a blogger, but have an Instagram account tag your lovely travel moments with #IGTravelThursday. No blog, no Instagram? You can still join in the fun by reading our IG-related travel stories and by giving us some feedback love!  If you want to host the IG Travel linky on your blog so that your readers can easily find our posts, you may use this,  get the InLinkz code