If you’ve got 12 (or more) hours in Chattanooga, here’s what I recommend:

Aretha Frankensteins: This hidden gem can’t be missed. I’m going to be honest, at first I was like they just have good SEO since they are listed on every blog, but no! It’s the cutest little spot nestled in a neighborhood just a little bit outside of downtown. We hit the timing just right, and walked right in to the last two seats of the seven-seat bar. The restaurant is in a historic house and has just four tables inside, plus those seven bar seats.

Need a little break from the cold? Consider Aruba!

Corby and I visited Aruba in December of 2018. It was so nice to trade cold and dreary Charlotte for warm and sunny Aruba. Aruba is currently accepting American visitors with restrictions in place. Click here for more information.

What you need to know:

Aruba is an island and a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the southern Caribbean Sea. It’s a huge cruise ship port destination, and the people are ridiculously nice. We met a family who had been vacationing in Aruba for 18 years! It’s a pretty small island, only 20 miles long and 6 miles long. It’s pretty dry, not quite a tropical lush paradise. Instead, they have a lot of sand and cactus filled landscape. It is outside of Hurricane Alley - so you’re in the clear for year-round sunshine. The official language is Dutch but everyone we encountered spoke English. They also take dollars as currency, in addition to florins.

This weekend, Corby and I snuck away to the Bolt Farm Majestic Treehouse in Walhalla, SC to celebrate our anniversary a little early. It has been such a crazy year so far and it was so nice to get offline for a bit and just enjoy the whimsy of the Bolt Farm Majestic Treehouse!

They say the treehouse is like a time machine, and I’d agree with that. It’s very vintage shabby chic, with the wall of windows looking out into the woods, vintage doors, ladders and trapdoors on the decks. We made pizzas in the pizza oven on the outdoor kitchen deck, equipped with a grill, cooler, sink, pizza oven, and table for two! The deck above that had two chaise lounges where we split a bottle of wine and some mosquito bites.

10 days away, 7 days on the ground and the challenge to not repeat an outfit in one of the most instagrammable places in the world, Cape Town!

I knew this would be the trip of a lifetime and I wanted to be sure I’d had functional but adorable outfits for winery hopping, kicking it with the penguins on the beach, having a sundowner and sightseeing around town. Lucky for me, it’s summer time in Cape Town and the temperatures were in the 70s.