One of the biggest challenges I have living in New York City is taking moments to just slow down and unplug. I know the city fairly well but often am on my phone looking up cross streets trying to figure out how to get somewhere or if I’m not doing that I’m checking all my social networks – Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook…I could go on! And frankly when my face is glued to my phone I often forget to look up at my surroundings and appreciate all the beauty that’s around me.

Growing up traveling quite a bit my mom used to always say “don’t forget to look up” and it’s amazing all you could miss if you’re staring at your horizon or the ground and it is for this reason that I’m excited to partner with smartwater to share their Instagram “look up” challenge. I snapped a variety of photos of looking up in my home of New York City as a part of this collaboration and loved the fresh perspective it gave me of looking at my whereabouts in a new lens.

Join the look up challenge! Share your photo (follow @smartwater on Instagram) and what you discovered when you decided to look up. Be sure to include #lookupsweepstakes in your post, too.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by smartwater through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about smartwater, all opinions are my own.