Just 30 minutes from Asheville, Maggie Valley has all the ingredients for a fun-filled family vacation in the North Carolina Smoky Mountains. Check out my tips for the perfect winter weekend vacation! This post was written in partnership with Visit North Carolina Smokies and Travel Mindset. I’m a sucker for a good winter vacation. I […]

Planning a Panama City Beach family vacation? Here are a few things you’ll want to know before you go! Unexpectedly, Panama City Beach has stolen my heart. I love it for its high-rise condominiums, which guarantee me a vacation filled with mornings waking to sounds of the surf and panoramic views of the Gulf of […]

From thrilling outdoor adventures to great restaurants, shopping, and children’s activities, St. George, Utah has all the ingredients for a memorable family vacation – and winter is a great time to beat the crowds! This post was written in partnership with Visit St. George.  To know my family is to know we love hiking and […]

Knoxville, Tennessee is the perfect place for a holiday weekend getaway! As soon as we arrive in downtown Knoxville, fat flakes of snow begin drifting down from the sky as if on cue. It lends a decidedly festive feeling to this historic city, already festooned with Christmas lights, ribbons and greenery. We’ve decided to begin […]

  I have to admit something to you — I am a Nutcracker Nerd. I have been since I was a kid in Gainesville, Georgia. Watching our city ballet’s Nutcracker performance was an annual tradition for the whole town and certainly the main reason my friends and I were all enrolled in ballet classes from […]

There’s no better way to escape the Nashville crowds this Christmas season than with a trip to nearby Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This post was written in partnership with Ready Set Rutherford. We’ve spent a lot of time in Rutherford County and have hand-picked the items on this list just for you! With free parking across the […]

This massive Music City hotel is ideal for tourists, staycationers… and anyone seeking to escape a zombie apocalypse. If you happen to be in Nashville and learn of an impending apocalypse, I can think of no better place to wait out End Times than the Gaylord Opryland Resort. I think of it as Music City’s […]

It’s safe to say we are diehard Disney World fans. As much as we love exploring new destinations, there’s something so comforting and nostalgic about making an annual pilgrimage to Walt Disney World  — For me, it’s a chance to relive some of my favorite memories of visiting Disney World as a kid while making […]

Want to tour a mansion in the dark? Watch a skillet-throwing competition? Wander through the state’s largest corn maze? See dogs from around the globe compete in the nation’s top dog agility competition? It’s all happening in Rutherford County this fall — Check out this list of must-do events in Murfreesboro, Smyrna, LaVergne, and Eagleville. […]

‘Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him.’ –Annie Dillard In the days leading up to the eclipse, I read Annie Dillard’s classic essay on the subject. She described it perfectly — yet I still couldn’t wrap my brain around what exactly we […]