When it comes to travel diaries, Frieha Altaf is one to watch out for as you’d always get some interesting scoop on her Instagram handle. Presently in Los Angeles, Frieha recently visited Los Cabos, Mexico, to attend the Destination Wedding Planners (DWP) conference as a board member. She represented Pakistan at the event as a brand ambassador and also won two awards.

"This is my fourth DWP conference and now I’m on the advisory board so it is absolutely necessary for me to be there," she told Instep. "I was also a speaker for all of Asia so it was a very important thing. We also realized that the Destination market for Asia is still underdeveloped because only 22 per cent of weddings that happen in Asia use wedding planners."

This was Frieha’s third trip to Mexico and the reason she keeps going back there is because she loves the country, its culture and its people. "They are actually very similar to us in so many ways; very emotional, very loving and extremely warm," she added. "This time I have come to California. It is a very big country and I can’t say enough about this place. It is not expensive, it is wonderfully cultural, wonderfully historical and it has the most amazing beaches. If you like history, culture and, sun and sand, which is what I love, then this is the place to come to. It’s fabulous!"

According to her, Cancún is one of the best and the most popular places in Mexico with sun, beaches and aqua turquoise water all over, while Chichen Itza, situated close by, is also very beautiful. "If you want to have a vacation plus holiday and a beautiful destination wedding, that would be the number one location," she observed. "However if you want to get away and do something really different then the Wine Country is quite interesting. We went to two vineyards which were very good sites for weddings. One looked like a spaceship because it was a mountain and on top of that they had like a coliseum and it was a beautiful sight as you could see 3600 acres of vineyard. The other one was completely underground. If you are interested in something very different, something very exotic, those would be the places to go to."

Moving on, Frieha also spoke about a new concept, called glamping (glamorous camping), which is very popular in North America but hasn’t been discovered in Pakistan yet. "It’s outdoors, it’s very different," she shared. "One of the places we visited was literally like a cave where you have a DJ and a party and then you go to master suite which was just nothing but you could see the sky, big boulders and millions of stars so that’s also a very nice place to hold an event."

Reflecting on the weather, Frieha informed that it was a bit of both. "It’s very hot during the day and gets very cold at night. People think it’s very hot in California but it’s actually not; it’s windy. I had lots of fun dressing up in this kind of weather where I had room for variation for day and night outfits. The day outfits were supposed to be business formal. I opted for a Chloé white dress and one from a Canadian designer which was very colourful.

At the gala night, I wore a black, beaded gown by Ayesha Hashwani and put my hair up while on the last eve in Mexico, which was supposed to be more of a bohemian night, I went for an off-shoulder white linen dress with a denim jacket by Umar Sayeed."