One of my favorite things EVER is walk-able cities! I love places that you can walk out of your hotel, condo, home, etc. and walk to food or entertainment. It is one of the top things I look for in vacations or any kind of trips! For the next few Wednesday’s I am going to put up some posts on some of my favorite walk-able destinations that we have traveled to in the last few years.
This post was originally written in summer of 2016.
We love quick get-away trips with the family and Chattanooga is the perfect place! It is one of TJ’s favorite places because of all the fun things there is to do right downtown! There is also an abundance of great restaurants and places to get in some fun exercise!
We enjoy staying at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown. It is 2-3 blocks from the river and is right next to the Chattanooga Lookouts stadium and the Children’s Discovery Museum. It is within walking distance to the Aquarium, the IMAX and many restaurants of all prices. During this trip we got a room on the 6th floor with a balcony. TJ loved being able to look out over the city! The hotel is very nice and clean and offers breakfast, a gym, a bar and an indoor pool. It also has a nice patio to people watch from.
One of our favorite things to do is run/walk on the River Walk. The River Walk is a 13 mile paved trail all along the river. It’s great for running, walking and biking. We accessed it by walking in between the Aquarium buildings. The Chattanooga Aquarium offers many man-made creaks and fountains that TJ enjoyed playing in before getting in the stroller. We then ran up to the Walnut Street walking bridge and over to the other side of the river. Coolidge Park is on the other side so we took a break and rode the carousel. Rides are $1 a person. Coolidge Park also has a fun fountain area to play in and lots of greenspace to run and play. It’s also a great place to take a break if you are exhausted from trying to keep up with your fast husband! On the run back TJ wanted to run instead of riding in the stroller. He set a very nice, much slower pace! Running is something we enjoy but the River Walk and Walnut Street Bridge are perfect places to grab an ice cream and stretch your legs. We spotted ice cream shops on either side of the bridge. Chattanooga also offers bike rentals in multiple locations that are self-pay. We saw rentals both on the downtown side of the bridge and just behind the Aquarium.
We finished up the fun evening with dinner at Hennan’s. Thankfully they had a very nice spot to eat outside because it was about 90 degrees and we were wearing running close and covered in sweat! Hennan’s is a pretty fancy restaurant, especially if you eat inside so we looked a little out of place! The food was excellent!! I had tuna and Adam had a pasta dish! I would totally recommend this restaurant and would eat there again in a minute! They don’t have a printed kids menu but were able to make some very kid friendly meals. They were also very knowledgeable about gluten and informed me they could make changes on most everything on the menu to accommodate allergen issues.
The next day we went to the Children’s Discovery Museum! The museum is perfect for little guys that like to run and touch everything! The very first room is a huge playground and water area! We could stay in there all day! The other rooms included music, dinosaurs, a doctor’s office, an art room, a room about bees and an outside area. We got there just as the museum opened and it wasn’t very crowded but within an hour it got extremely busy. We have been there before during the school year and it wasn’t nearly as busy. We ended the day by walking to lunch! Downtown Chattanooga has so much to offer with lots of chain restaurants and originals and also lots of price points. It was an extremely hot day and we were tired so we just headed to Chili’s. I knew they could offer Mac and Cheese and air conditioning so it was a good choice!
Family trips are so much fun and Chattanooga made it so easy!
