Monday, July 26, 2021

10 Girls' Weekend Getaways in The South

If you're looking to get away for a weekend of fun, girl talk, spa treatments, relaxing at the beach, or time out in nature with your sisters (or best friends), we've got a lot of options for you! The South is home to many great vacation spots that are perfect for a girls’ weekend trip. 


Take your sisters or girlfriends on a vacation down South this summer! These are the unique small town destinations The Harris Sisters have visited for a girls' retreat to date:

10 Southern Girls' Weekend Destinations

1. Hot Springs, NC (2012) - This was our very first Girls' Weekend and we took that trip in May of 2012. Incidentally, we started the blog in September of 2012 (which is why we don't have a write up of that trip on the blog). For this trip, we visited Hot Springs Resort and Spa to have a relaxing soak in their natural mineral hot springs. If you're looking for a relaxing spa-like trip, this location might interest you!

2. Pigeon Forge, TN (2013) - For our Girls' Weekend this year, we visited the Dollywood amusement park in Pigeon Forge, TN, and Harris Sister Misty's oldest daughter, Charlotte, tagged along with us. (And if you've never thought about this before, 4 is a much better number than 3 for riding theme park rides.) We also got a chance to take an old-fashioned photo at Treadways of Gatlinburg. If you like trying new amusement parks, Dollywood might be a great one to put on your list!

3. Asheville, NC (2014) - This year, we visited the Asheville Food & Wine Festival. The Asheville Food & Wine Festival quietly ended in 2017 and has since been replaced by the acclaimed Chow Chow Festival. If you're a foodie or a wine connoisseur, a trip to a new food festival might be the trip for you!

4. Louisville, KY (2015) - By this time we were old pros at Girls' Weekend! We'd figured out that a day of traveling to our location plus a day of traveling back was really cutting into our Girls' Weekend Trip time. We extended all our trips from this one forward to 4 days and were able to pack in all sorts of activities. Our main event for this getaway was a New Kids on the Block, Nelly, & TLC concert. We also saw the sights in downtown Louisville, rode in a horse drawn carriage, met the owner of Jerry's Junk, and visited a tea parlor. Lots of fun things to do in Louisville - we would recommend!

5. Beaufort, NC (2016) - This little beach town did not disappoint. From taking a tour to see wild horses to visiting Emerald Isle beach, we also made time to do some antiquing and visit Fort Macon State Park. If you're a beach lover, Beaufort, NC, provides lots of fun in the area!

6. St. Simons Island, GA (2017) - This year was another unique Girls' Weekend Beach Getaway. We carved out time to visit Driftwood Beach, take a painting class, and explore the island and its shops. This was the first time we did a Facebook Live on location. St. Simons Island provides another great beach location for a girls' weekend away.

7. Bryson City, NC (2018) - Our main adventure this year was riding the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. We also visited the antique stores in downtown Bryson City, discovered some great vintage finds at Teresa's Treasures (which is housed at the Old Warrior Motel complete with its original roadside neon sign), and hiked to Tom's Branch Waterfall. If you're looking for a one-of-a-kind trip to the mountains, Bryson City will provide lots of things to do on your Girls' Weekend vacation.


8. Helen, GA (2019) - This little storybook town provided the backdrop for our 2019 trip. We visited Babyland General (the birthplace of the Cabbage Patch Kids), toured Three Sisters Vineyards for a chocolate and wine tasting, stopped by the Stovall Mill Covered Bridge, hiked Anna Ruby Falls, and had a horse drawn carriage ride through downtown Helen after visiting their shops and restaurants. This year, we checked in with you guys by doing a Facebook Live to do a taste test and review of some of our favorite nostalgic foods of our childhood. If you like a variety of unique activities to choose from, Helen, GA, can provide that for you!

9. Chattanooga, TN (2020) - Well, we almost missed out on an opportunity for a Girls' Weekend in 2020 because of COVID restrictions. We opted to move our girls' trip out until fall of the year, and we were so happy we did! While in Chattanooga, we found and took photos of the art murals in downtown, visited the Chattanooga Choo Choo, and made a little side trip to See Rock City (which is just across the border in GA). We passed the time on this trip by doing a wine and candy pairing (since we were so close to Halloween). It's easy to escape for the weekend with the variety of fun things to do in Chattanooga, TN.


10. Boone, NC (2021) - Between visiting Tweetsie Railroad and The Land of Oz, our weekend was packed with nostalgia from our childhood. We topped off the trip with a visit to Shatley Springs for brunch and a sip of their famous healing water. With two theme parks and beautiful scenic views, Boone, NC, provides the perfect mountain destination for a fun and relaxing girls' weekend trip.


10+ Fun Activities for Your Girls' Weekend Getaway

Here's a look at some of the activities The Harris Sisters have tried on our annual Girls' Weekend trips. If you'd like to add any of these activities to your weekend getaway itinerary, you can visit the original posts to find out more information.

Amusement Parks - Relive your childhood by visiting an amusement park! If roller coasters aren't your speed, most theme parks have carousels, shows, souvenir shops, and all the junk food you can eat!
Antiquing - What's more fun that hunting for vintage treasures with the girls? From antique malls to flea markets, your girls' trip might provide the perfect opportunity to pick up incredible bargains, unique finds, and rare antiques. 
Eat Like a Queen - While on vacation, now's the time to get creative with some of your meals. Since you don't have kids with you, you might as well try some more adventurous foods experiences that you wouldn't otherwise get to try! Whether planning a girls' night in with appetizers and finger foods or trying a unique restaurant, use this opportunity to branch out!
Healing Mineral/Spring Water -  If you're looking for something out-of-the-ordinary for your girl's trip, maybe you'd be interested in healing mineral or spring water. 
Historic Sites - While you're on vacation, why not visit the historic sites in the area? From museums to monuments and lighthouses to libraries, you'd be surprised what history you might uncover on your trip.

Horse Drawn Carriage Rides - Enjoy a leisurely ride in a horse-drawn carriage while surrounding yourself with the sights and sounds of the city you're visiting. What a fun thing to do on your trip!
Beach Destination - Whether you spend an entire day or just go for a couple of hours, the beach is a great place for a group of friends to relax and hang out together. (And best of all - this activity is FREE!) What's not to love about that?
Mountain Destination - Get your fill of outdoor adventures like hiking, waterfalls, and enjoying time around the firepit. Don't forget to appreciate the amazing scenery too!

Take a Tour or a Class - Sure, you could just hang out at your rental house and relax in the hot tub for your entire Girls' Weekend, but you'd be missing out on what the area has to offer! When you're making your itinerary, make sure to make reservations for something fun like a museum, historic site, or other unique activity.
Trains - Another great weekend getaway adventure is a scenic train ride. Riding the rails on a private excursion or in a theme park always proves to be fun. Don't forget that visiting historic trains also makes for good photo opportunities!

Wine - Add a winery or a food and wine festival to your girls' weekend itinerary and enjoy your favorite wines by the glass or the bottle. Or go all out and host your own girls' weekend wine tasting!
Spa - If you're looking to relax, book some time at a spa. This is one activity that you might not get to enjoy at home, so why not take advantage when you're on your Girls' Weekend getaway?
  • Hot Springs, NC
Concert - If you love live music, then take the opportunity to scope out what bands are playing in the area while you're visiting. Or, maybe pick a band that you really want to see, check their tour dates, and plan your Girls' Weekend around one of their stops.
Enjoy Free Activities - Not every activity on your girls' retreat needs to be expensive or even cost a dime. These no spend activities will ensure you enjoy time away from home with your friends without breaking the bank.

Traditions to Incorporate into Your Trip

The Harris Sisters also do a few things nearly every Girls' Weekend to make the trip memorable for us. You might have different traditions for your Girls' Weekend, but these are the things we try to do every year:

Drink Donald Duck Orange Juice

This is a tradition we've carried over from our childhood. (We used to drink Donald Duck Orange Juice on road trips as children.) What are some childhood traditions that you might be able to incorporate into your Girls' Weekend trips?

St. Simons Island, GA

Louisville, KY

Helen, GA


Take a photo with matching T-shirts

Pro Tip: You can use your Girls' Weekend T-shirts for multiple trips! For example, we wore our Georgia Peach T-shirts for both our St. Simons Island trip and our Helen trip.

Chattanooga, TN

Beaufort, NC


St. Simons Island, GA

Enjoy Coca-Cola

We started this tradition when Coca-Cola launched their Share a Coke campaign and started manufacturing cans and bottles with words, song lyrics, and names on them. Of course, this campaign has ended and Coca-Cola will develop more marketing campaigns in the future. It was fun to incorporate this fad into a few photoshoots! What fads can you incorporate into your girls' trip?

Louisville, KY

Bryson City, NC

St. Simons Island, GA


Make a sign for the location you're visiting

We started this tradition to be able to easily mark our photos! (And it really helps that Harris Sister Misty is artistic. She's the one who makes all of our signs.) If you've got an artist in your group, consider asking her to make signs for your group too!
Beaufort, NC

Chattanooga, TN

Boone, NC


Tips for Planning a Great Girls' Weekend Trip

Here are our tips to make sure you get the most out of your Girls' Weekend getaway.

  1. Plan your itinerary well in advance. After you've decided on your destination, make sure you plan out which activities to do on which days. There's nothing worse than getting to the end of your trip and realizing that you didn't make time for an activity you really wanted to do. 
  2. When you're choosing activities, choose fun things that are unique to the area you're visiting. Make sure to vary the locations and activities from year to year. If you always choose a tropical location, maybe try the mountains one year. Because even though traditions are important, you want to make sure that every Girls' Weekend trip is special and memorable.
  3. A rental cabin or house will be your best bet for accommodations. You'll be able to spread out more than in a hotel, and if you'd like to cook your own food rather than eat out for every meal, you'll be able to do that. A house or cabin will also allow your group to hang out together in the  main areas in your downtime, while a hotel room can only hold so many people. Don't forget that many rental properties also have hot tubs - which is a fun way to relax late in the evenings after a long day of fun!
  4. Skip the mall in favor of antiquing or shops specific to the area you're visiting. You'll find some unique treasures this way!
  5. Don't forget to take photos! You'll be able to remember your trip with photos from the weekend. Make sure to include everyone in your group.

If you and your friends are excited to get away from it all for a long weekend trip, we hope these ideas have inspired you. The Southern cities, towns, and islands we've visited have something for everyone in your group. So start packing!
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Monday, July 12, 2021

How to Create Your Own Summer Camp at Home

Now that the summer is in full swing, I thought I would share with you a little trick we tried recently.  We created our own summer camp right here at home, and let me tell you- IT WAS A HIT!  We have a big busy summer of travel, family plans, pool time, fun activities, playdates, and on and on and on.  So when we finally slowed down for a week, and had a little time to spend at home, it was a welcome change of pace.  BUT, I didn't want my kiddo to just veg out on screen time all week either.  So I had a brilliant idea.  Why not do our own summer camp at home?  So that's just what we did.  


Here are my top tips for you if you want to give it a go at home this summer too. 

Camp T-shirts


Nothing says camp like a good camp t-shirt.  Lexi and I like to match each other to begin with.  So our closets are already filled with matching t-shirts.  Each day, I picked which shirts we would wear and we matched all week long.  If you don't already have matching t-shirts, you could totally make some for a fun camp activity.  Or, pick a theme or color scheme instead.  For example, you could all wear super hero t-shirts one day.  Or wear your red, white, and blue.  The sky is the limit.  Matching shirts made it fun for us.  Every single day, Lexi woke up and asked which shirts we were wearing today!  Here's a look at some of our matching looks from camp week.


 

Planning is Key


I figured out pretty early in this process that making a plan for the day worked best for us.  I planned each day just one day at a time.  That way if an activity took longer than expected, we could easily shift things to another day without upsetting a week's worth of plans.  My kiddo really likes arts and crafts.  And we have lots of craft kits at home.  So I knew that I would include time on our schedule each day for something arty or crafty.  I enjoy field trips, and Lexi likes to do fun things that are new, exciting, or that we just plain haven't done in a while.  So I also made sure we had time each day for a fun activity outside the house. Each night before going to bed, I plotted out the next day's camp activities and printed off a little itinerary for Lexi to find the next morning.  We began each camp day around 8:30 am and wrapped around 3 pm.  She kept us on track and marked things off our to-do list as we completed them.  This schedule worked great for us, but it's your camp- so you can design your schedule around your schedule.  That's the beauty of it!

Kids Pick for Lunch

For me, this was a no-brainer.  I knew Lexi would enjoy having the freedom to make the lunch decisions for us.  So our lunches consisted of things like Happy Meals, PB&J picnics in the back yard, and trips to the Sonic drive-in.  I was completely ok with those choices.  If you prefer to have a little more control on the lunch decisions, you could alternate kid pick and mom pick days.  Or you could provide a list of choices and let the kiddos pick from your mom-approved list.  Again, it's all up to you.  But letting Lexi pick her own lunches was super fun for her, and we ended up having some really fun meals together.  





Choosing your Activities


Your days at your summer camp can be as simple or as well planned as you like.  We began each day with projects at home ranging from art projects to making crafts to cooking up treats in the kitchen.  Once we were all finished and cleaned up from our morning activities, we had lunch and then a field trip in the afternoon. I came up with a list of all sorts of fun things for us to try our hand at.  Again, some activities were super simple, some were a little more involved, and some didn't actually make it into production.  

Here's a look at some of the things we chose to do.

Arts and Crafts


Paper Fortune Tellers


If you are a child of the 80s, you will remember these.  Although, if you are anything like me, you will also have long forgotten how to actually make one.  Thank goodness for YouTube.  Click here for the tutorial we used.  But there are ton of them out there.  We had so much fun making these, especially the fortunes.  And when we were done, we decorated them with markers and stickers.  Lexi is still asking everyone she comes across to pick a color and then a number, and then doles out their fortune to them.  



Sunprint Paper Art 


We have actually had this kit and have used it before but it's always a fun activity and one that comes together quickly.  The idea is that you collect leaves and flowers and such from the garden, then arrange them on a piece of sunprint paper.  You layer a piece of clear plexiglass on top and sit the whole thing in the sun for just a few minutes.  Once the paper has changed color, you know it's ready.  You run the paper under water and let it dry.  Your sunprint develops like magic.  It's a really cool project and the kids always enjoy it!  These kits are readily available from Amazon.




Summer Selfie Art Project 


We are long-time followers of Cassie Stephens.  She is a local art teacher right here in our part of the world.  And last year, when the world shut down, she created all sorts of art tutorials for kids and posted them on YouTube and Instagram.  We made all kinds of art with her last year.  So a quick search on her YouTube channel was just what we needed to come up with a fun art project for one morning of our summer camp week.  This is the tutorial we used to create these summer selfies.  But once you are on her channel, plan to do some poking around, because she has the best ideas for kids' art projects.  Just pull one up and go step by step through it.  Pause where you need to catch up, and resume when you are ready to move on.  So fun and so easy.  


I also printed off lots of fun and free word searches, crossword puzzles, and coloring sheets at the beginning of the week, and when we had a little extra time we worked on a few of those.  I had lots of different ones to choose from, and we completed quite a few.  They were a big hit too!  Sometimes simple is good too.   

Field Trips and Fun Outings 


Story Bus


Our school district offers a wonderful (free) summertime reading service called the Story Bus to anyone who wants to participate.  The Story Bus parks in a grocery store parking lot three times a week, and while the little ones visit the Story Bus for some reading fun, parents can get their grocery shopping knocked out.  


So we visited one day of our summer camp, and Lexi had a ball!  One of her teachers was on the bus, and Lexi lit up seeing her again!  


They picked some books and read to each other from the comfort of some pretty cozy looking bean bag chairs.  


And when it was time to go, they sent us away with bagged lunches, cartons of milk, Sonic coupons, and a free book.  It's worth a check to see if your local district does something similar, but if they don't, check with your local library.  Almost all of them offer some sort of summer reading program for kids.  They are almost always free and lots of libraries offer storytime and other fun activities throughout the summer.  

Roller skating


One afternoon, I surprised Lexi with a trip to our local roller skating rink, and it was the best time.  She is just learning to skate, and I haven't skated in years, so we ended up being a great team.  


Our roller skating rink plays fun games and has races for all age groups.  When they announced a race for kids age 9 and under, Lexi was the first one to the starting line. 


And she made a great run at it, even with that kiddy walker thing.  She wasn't first place, but she wasn't last place either.  I love her confidence! 


Between skating and racing, we played some arcade games and wouldn't you know, Lexi ended up winning the jackpot.  She cashed in all her hard earned tickets for a cute stuffed hamster, and all was right with the world.  We skated until they were literally turning off the lights for the day.  I'd say this outing was a success. 


Swimming Pool


One especially hot afternoon, we made a trip to our local swimming pool for a little fun in the sun.  


We swam and floated, and found friends, and Lexi showed me every single trick she knows in the water.  It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon.


I also have other splash pads and local water parks on my list for later this summer.  

Exploring your Town


When this mural was installed a month or so ago, I knew I was going to take Lexi for a few pictures, so I put it on one of our itineraries one day. 


There are all sorts of murals in our area and we have had fun doing this for years.  It also makes for a fun scavenger hunt.  Tell your kiddos what you are looking for and see if they can spot it.  


Other Fun Things to Try at Home


Manicures and Pedicures


We spent the better part of one camp morning having an at-home spa experience.  We picked nail colors and I polished fingers and toes with all sorts of glitter and sparkle.  You could also play with different hairstyles, or do a foot bath, test out all your lip glosses and pick your favorite flavor.  So many fun ways to play spa.  


Tie Dye


We had never done tie dye before our camp week at home, but we tried our hand at it and I have to say, the tie dye kits they sell make it super simple for even beginners like us.  We took a small field trip to our local craft store to buy our supplies and then worked on making matching t-shirts at home.  Just make sure you have newspaper down to protect your surfaces and wear gloves to keep your hands clean.  


Our shirts turned out great!  I added our names with the help of my Cricut and some iron on vinyl.  Now we have more matching t-shirts for our next camp week, or to wear anytime just because they are awesome!


Other Fun Ideas for your DIY Summer Camp


As I said, we didn't actually complete all the items on our summer camp bucket list, so we have lots of ideas left for other summer camp weeks.  Here are some of our ideas for future summer camps: 

  • Paint your own pottery
  • Make an iMovie
  • Have a picnic at the park
  • Set up water slide in the back yard
  • Go for a bike ride
  • Afternoon at Chuck E Cheese
  • Go bowling
  • Visit the local flower truck and make a flower bouquet
  • Plant wildflowers
  • Find a pen pal and start writing letters
  • Berry picking
  • Visit the local bounce house
  • Go for a creek walk
  • Indoor rock climbing
  • Horseback riding
  • Make sweet notes/ drawings for neighbors and friends
  • Splash pad
  • Lego party
And if that doesn't give you enough ideas, check out this Harris-Sister approved list of 100 Things to do this Summer,   

Overall, we give Summer Camp at Home a 10 out of 10.  My kiddo is still asking me when we are going to do it again.  Soon, my dear.  I promise, soon.  I hope you all are enjoying your summer too!  And if you decide to give this idea a go, comment below to let us know how you spent your time.  We would love to hear from you!

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