During my funemployment year, I tried to take at least one flight per week to maximize my travel time. While in Denver for 4th of July, I was booking a bunch of flights, and Eric started to get a little jealous of all the fun stuff I was doing without him. As a result, we decided to find a weekend trip that he could join in on. We used Southwest’s Route Map to find the cheapest flight from SFO to any city in the US, and turns out Salt Lake City was a pretty cheap destination.
I didn’t have to worry about schedules, but SOMEONE had to work, so we took a late Friday night flight. When we landed, we checked in, and immediately headed over to the closest bar to start our vacation off right. A block away was Squatters Brewery, which had a ton of draft and bottle choices, and a ton of unique brews. We ended up hanging out there until they closed and getting all of the local tips from the bartenders.
As a side note, everyone had told us that Salt Lake City wasn’t a whole lot of fun, because they’re strict with alcohol. Not the case. They do have some weird rules, for example, draft beer has a % limit, your ID must be swiped every time you go to a bar and order a drink, and all liquor has a monitored spout, but it really doesn’t matter. The people are awesome, and there is a huge craft beer scene and some super cool cocktail bars. Plus you’re only 20 minutes from the mountains in the center of an incredibly beautiful city.
Day Two:
We woke up after sleeping in a little bit, and had the free breakfast and coffee at the hotel to fuel up for the day. We started out walking towards the City Creek Center mall and stopped at a SUPER unique bookstore, Utah Book and Magazine, along the way. It was an incredibly crowded store, which is something I absolutely love, plus it was full of fun signs and props to describe what genre you were in. They also random had a collection of hundreds of VHS tapes, which was a lot of nostalgia for us.
Now, going to a mall on vacation is usually a bad idea, unless it’s for food. And honestly, we went for the food. SF does not have a Chic-Fil-A, and we were hounding for some. Additionally, I brought shorts I had never worn before, and turns out they didn’t fit, so I wanted to go to Athleta to get some more comfortable outfits for the rest of the trip. Little did we know, that this mall, HAS A CREEK IN IT. It was so cool – definitely worth a walk through even if you don’t need to re-buy an entire wardrobe and eat chicken nuggets.
Next up was Temple Square. Remember when I mentioned that SLC is the most beautiful city ever? Well here’s the proof. Honestly my photos don’t even kind of do it justice. Temple Square is amazing. Walking through is absolutely beautiful. Plus, its the main place people take wedding photos in the city, and at one point we were able to see FOUR different couples taking photos in their wedding dresses. I was definitely a little jealous of all of them, but I’ll say it was a good omen since Eric proposed just a few months later š
After walking though Temple Square, we decided to go to the Family History Museum. Initially I was super skeptical to go, because I was afraid we’d be greeted with an immediate sales pitch to convert. To my delight, we went in and were greeted with open arms and not a single mention of the religion the entire time we were there. We were brought to a computer so I could start searching, and the gentleman with us was able to find a huge part of my family tree in mere minutes. They then asked Eric if he was interested in looking at his family tree, and he opened up about how difficult it is to search a family tree in Chinese families. They took us upstairs and they had an entire floor devoted to Asia with representatives that spoke and read every dialect of Chinese. Within about 15 minutes we’d found an old book with records from his family. We’d spent hours/day/weeks trying to search the various ancestry websites with no luck, so it was super impressive that they were able to find so much. I 100% recommend this as the number one thing on your itinerary for SLC.
On the way back towards the hotel, we stopped at Whiskey Street, a super cool whiskey themed bar with incredible apps. We ordered a TON of food. Think pork belly corn dogs, deviled eggs with pimento cheese, short rib polenta poutine, and fried pickles. We had a ton of fun getting tipsy and full before we headed out to the next spot.
After that we stopped by a SUPER cool dive bar called Cheers to You. It’s the epitome of an old school dive, with red plastic booths, PBR on tap, and pinball machines in the back. Eric and I spent a few hours drinking PBR’s and challenging each other to every game they had.
As we then again tried to walk back to the hotel, we ended up passing by a brewery called RedRock Brewing. We stopped in for yet another app and a few beers, before stopping at ANOTHER bar called Gracie’s which was truly the high point of the evening. It’s a super fun bar/club with cocktails, great music, and a rooftop, outdoor bar.
Day Three:
We were pretty hungover so we had a late start. We had decided to visit the Leonardo Museum and the Salt Lake City Library and started our walk over hoping to find something good to eat along the way. We had heard good things about a good Southern restaurant nearby, but unfortunately it was closed, so we hit up Maxwell’s East Coast Eatery. We had some great apps and a little hair of the dog to get us going.
We headed the rest of the way to The Leonardo museum named after Leonardo DaVinci, which is an incredible science museum. The museum is SUPER cool, and it basically allows you to act like a kid for a few hours. One of the first things we got to do was get into an old plane, and it was really cool to snap some pictures of Eric pretending to fly it. The exhibits were all incredibly interactive, including a HUGE lego table that we spent a good 20 minutes at before continuing on.
After the museum, we decided to walk over to the SLC Library. Everyone who knows me, knows that I love books, I love to read, and every city I visit, I try to find a library or independent bookstore to check out. The SLC library y’all, is AMAZING. It’s the most beautiful collection of books I’ve ever seen. We spent about 30 minutes walking around, including heading out onto their rooftop observation deck, where we could see some amazing views of the city, but didn’t stay long since they have a bee garden close by, and ain’t NOBODY trying to be around some bees.
We wanted to take it easy the rest of the day, so we headed over to another outdoor shopping area called The Gateway to walk around a bit. We ended up grabbing dinner at Bout Time Pub and Grub along with a drink before hitting up a movie and then going back to the hotel early since our flight was at 6 am the next morning.
Next time I visit, I definitely want to hit up the rooftop restaurant in Temple Square. Any other tips on what I should do next time or questions about your visit? Let me know in the comments!
