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The Biltmore Estate, North Carolina
In the late 1880s, twenty-five-year-old George Vanderbilt, the grandson of industrialist Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, went horseback riding through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina. As he crested the top of a hill and gazed out over the peaks and valleys of the land below him, he made a decision: on this piece of earth, he was going to build a chateau. He purchased 125,000 acres of land and enlisted his friend, Richard Morris Hunt, to be the architect. Six years and over 1,000 laborers later, the Biltmore Estate would become the largest privately owned mansion in America. Today, the Biltmore Estate has downsized from 125,000 acres to a…
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Asheville, North Carolina
What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever visited? Truthfully, Asheville isn’t exactly the weirdest place I’ve ever been, but lately they’ve leaned into the motto Stay Weird to describe the funky, hipster, outdoorsy vibes that define this little city in western North Carolina. I went to college in Knoxville, in the Great Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee. Just an hour and a half east of Knoxville sits Asheville, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains and situated at the convergence of two rivers, the French Broad and the Swannanoa. On an early spring day in March, my mom, stepdad, Matt, and I trekked from Nashville to Asheville (about a four-hour drive) for…
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A Nashville Wedding
One of the most poetic things I like to say about my marriage is that it has been blessed by green and growing things. In July 2016, my husband, Matt, proposed to me at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris and in August 2017, he married me in a greenhouse in Nashville, Tennessee. Matt and I both grew up in Tennessee–him in a small town north of Nashville known for its strawberries, and me in bluesy, soulful Memphis. We chose to get married in August under the heat of the summer sun, where my bridesmaids and I could wear breezy, billowy dresses and everyone else could sweat their faces off. Did…
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Versailles, France
Once home to the kings and queens of France, the Chateau de Versailles is an opulent, extravagant, gold-flecked experience that should be part of every Parisian itinerary!
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San Diego, California
San Diego has always had my heart. It’s vibrant, colorful, and close to the ocean. Its proximity to Mexico means that it has a rich Mexican culture and history.
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Montmartre, Paris
I currently have cathedrals on the brain, largely due to the fact that I just finished reading Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. And while I fully understand and intend for this to be a travel blog, I can’t help but use my Internet platform to tell my readers to read this book. Its 900+ pages detail the story of a monk’s quest to build the most beautiful cathedral in all of medieval England. Halfway through reading it, I declared to Matt: “this is my new second-favorite book” (truly nothing will ever push Virginia Woolf’sMrs. Dalloway out of the top spot). Thinking about cathedrals has made me nostalgic for the…
