One of my New Years goals is to travel more - whether it’s a short day trip, a long weekend, or a full blown vacation, I just want to get out and travel more often. I love visiting new & favorited/frequented places (hi FL!), especially if it involves getting to taste-test new restaurants or finding cool coffee shops.
Since Chattanooga is so centrally located to major cities like Nashville & Atlanta, those are usually in the rotation. But one place we don’t go as much is Knoxville (& that’s about to change)! Knoxville offers so much to do, but since we were just going for the day, we stuck to just a handful of things.
One of the main draws for a Lilly Pulitzer obsessed fan like myself is the fact that there is a brick & mortar Lilly store in Knoxville. That probably doesn’t sound exciting to most who have Lilly stores in their cities, but Chatt actually doesn’t have one (just a Belk, which a very small & often disappointing selection of Lilly items). Since we were going during the weekend of the Lilly APS (read more on that here) , obviously the Lilly store, Palm Village, was my first stop!
I didn’t go crazy since there definitely are trips I’m saving up for this year, but of course one of those trips is the Pink Retreat in June, so this girl wasn’t about to pass up a Lilly sale! I tried on a few items but decided on the Sherryn shift in Blue Oasis & the Calla romper in Mermaid in the Shade.
I’m quickly building up my vacay wardrobe for the Pink Retreat & I can’t wait!
All that shopping had us hungry, so we headed out in search of food & stumbled upon a store that is basically me personified: Glitterville. It was still decked out for Christmas but just imagine an explosion of color, fun trinkets, kitsch, tassels, & glitter. Now paint it all in neon candy-colored hues & add more tassels. That’s Glitterville.
Definitely going to need this wreath hanging from my door...year round!
Across the street is Balter Beerworks. This taproom serves up delicious eats, house brewed beer, and does a pretty awesome brunch! We tried their winter ale, but it wasn’t anything super impressive in my opinion. The food though - definitely A+! I ordered the burger & Barry tried the blackened fish tacos. 10/10 would recommend!
Finally, we figured we’d subjected Lilly to enough torture (ie. shopping for things that weren’t toys or plastered with Elsa & Anna) that she deserved to have some fun of her own. Luckily, Knoxville has an amazing Children’s Museum, so we swung by Muse Knoxville & let her run wild...and run wild she did!
Also, talk about missed grammable opportunities! How cute is the exterior of this building?! I could definitely envision having rainbow steps on my porch (do you think I can convince the hubs to paint our house like this?) :)
The Muse is a great option for little ones. Lilly is 2 & seriously enjoyed this place. There were different areas all themed to different things: an arts & craft section, a rocket ship, farmers market, health clinic, playground, and even a planetarium! Lillys favorite parts were definitely the farmers market (she enjoyed “pouring milk” into cups for random strangers) and the zip-tie tunnel!
It was a great way to spend a couple of hours while letting her expend some energy (which made the ride home for mom & dad very quiet)!
Our final stop of the day was for coffee, because I can’t really travel without stopping at a new coffee shop. We stumbled upon Honeybee Coffee and grabbed a cuppa for the drive home. I didn’t take many photos because at this point we were exhausted but I couldn’t leave without snapping a quick photo of the Baby Yoda sign (Baby Yoda is life).
Although it was such a brief trip, it was rally fun getting to explore a new city. There’s still so much I want to see & do in Knoxville so I will most definitely be back!
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