Sometimes I get these big ideas in my head that I can do travel ALL by myself. My husband has had a lot of business trips lately and I decided I needed one too, so I found a blogging conference with some speakers that sounded good in Salt Lake City and suddenly I had a business trip all of my own.
The only thing is I’m a little afraid of flying and being alone.
So thankfully, my friend Shirley came along to the conference too. Shirley blogs at Diverse Little Eater. She makes really awesome food and encourages people to eat all sorts of things with their kids and I really appreciate her foodie wisdom.
And because Shirley also appreciates food, eating was a big part of our adventure.
We found bakeries. (This one is called Eva’s)
And tasty restaurants. My favorite was this casual cafe called Gourmandise and it was about 20 minutes walk from the hotel. We did a lot of walking but it was a really nice way to see lots of things in Salt Lake City and without kids in tow nobody was there to complain about being tired or having sore feet.
We heard that the Tabernacle Choir has a drop in session on Thursdays that anyone can attend (the day we arrived) so of course we had to go. It was SO amazing that night because the Salt Lake City Orchestra also performed so there were hundreds of people on stage and the music sounded really pretty. We also explored the buildings nearby and had fun trying to get pretty shots of the big church.
We wandered to the library where we found out they keep bees on their rooftop. I wish we had this in Seattle. I am scared of bees but I love what they do for us. There are really beautiful views from this library too.
The conference hotel Little America was pretty ginormous for a hotel with ‘little’ in its name-my room felt like it was miles away from the lobby and I think there were hundreds of rooms and there was even another giant conference going on. One night we had dessert in the hotel Coffee Shop because we had heard people line up for desserts here and it was pretty good too. We tried something that sounded like it might be a strange peanut butter and cheese combination but it was so decadently divine it hit the spot. Everyone was really kind in this restaurant and they even split our dessert for us without us asking and the presentation was really pretty.
The hotel across the street, the GRAND AMERICA was over the top and we had to check it out to see if the Grand America was bigger than Little America-and I think it was and it truly was grand. There were chandeliers everywhere and a giant beautiful courtyard. We tried to see if there was a rooftop view too but we couldn’t find one. But there is a magical toy store in this hotel full of interactive screens and a giant talking robot that my kids would have totally loved.
They would have also loved the Leonardo Museum. It had so many interactive activities and we had free entry because of our Pacific Science Center Membership. I love supporting my local museums and it’s such a bonus when they have reciprocal benefits when we travel too! I think they could have spent a couple hours here.
One day I’d love to revisit Salt Lake City and go skiing because everyone I talked to told me how awesome it was. I also wanted to see the arch that is always pictured in Utah photographs but apparently that is 3 hours away from Salt Lake City and maybe a little closer to Las Vegas. I really enjoyed being on ‘my own’ though and despite wandering all over Salt Lake and eating I did learn a lot at the conference too. My favorite speakers were Guy Kawasaki and Liling Pang from Trekaroo. I also met some lovely fellow bloggers I hope to see again!
(PS. it was so easy to take the TRAXX from the airport to the Little America Hotel. I used Google Maps and pressed the button that looked like a train and it showed me when the TRAXX would arrive and the stop we needed to get off at. Google Maps totally helped us find all of our restaurants and stops in Salt Lake City too! For someone who can get lost in her own neighborhood, Google Maps is definitely revolutionary.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)