Happy Friday, y’all! This week has been so crazy, but in the best way possible! Last weekend my husband and I went for the weekend to visit his family in Kansas, and it was fun to see so many of his cousins and their kids. And then this week I have worked my nurse shifts in the ER, had a few calls with clients who are on my Fall schedule, and just generally been trying to get my house in order after several weekend trips in a row. I love traveling, but I always love being home just a little bit more.
Today’s blog post is about a trip we went on last month to one of my absolute favorite places in Arkansas – Hot Springs. My husband had a work conference there that coincided with our sixth wedding anniversary, so we decided to head down early for the weekend before his conference started on Monday. Hot Springs is such a fun place to visit, and we got to do so many cool things that I’ve never done before despite having visited the town several times over the last 22 years – I’ve been going there with my family since I was a little girl, and every time I visit I fall more and more in love with it!
Day One – Travel Day
It’s about a four hour drive from where we live in Northwest Arkansas to Hot Springs. We left home after eating lunch and made the journey down. The route we take is pretty curvy, so I of course took some nausea medicine to prevent getting carsick as I am prone to.
When we reached Hot Springs, we went straight to our Airbnb, which was conveniently located just two or three minutes from downtown. It was a really cute place and overall I loved staying there; the only complaint I had was that the mattress was much too firm for our taste. Finding an Airbnb, or even a hotel for that matter, can be a difficult process for us since my husband is quite tall and we are both such light sleepers that it is hard for us to sleep in anything other than a king sized bed, which this place did have. No place is perfect, but overall we really enjoyed staying there and would recommend it. It have linked it here if you are ever interested.
That first night for supper we ate at The Rooftop at the Waters Hotel. It’s the only rooftop restaurant in Hot Springs, so we definitely went there mainly for the experience. The food was mediocre, but it did have a pretty good view of downtown.
After eating, we each got a treat from Pour Some Sugar On Me Sweet Shoppe, which we ate once we got back to our Airbnb. It had been a long day for us, so we crashed pretty early that night.
Day Two – Hiking + Chapels + Pizza
If you’ve read any of my other travel journal blog entries, you know that we usually try to only eat out once a day, and cook in our Airbnbs or pack a sack lunch in order to save money and be able to do more activities. This trip was no different. We didn’t eat out for any breakfasts, and instead brought food from home to cook. I know this isn’t how everyone likes to travel, but when we’re able, it works for us.
After breakfast, we went to Lake Catherine State Park, which was about a 25 minute drive from where we were staying. Arkansas has 52 state parks, and our goal is to visit all of them. We hiked Falls Branch Trail and were able to see the waterfall, which we weren’t sure of since it had been so hot and dry the weeks before our visit. The hike was followed by a sack lunch there in the park, and then we headed to Anthony Chapel on our way back to town.
Anthony Chapel is located in Garvan Woodland Gardens, and is one of three glass chapels in Arkansas (the other two are Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel in Bella Vista and Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs). I can now say that I have been to all three glass chapels, and they are all so beautiful and unique! When planning my own wedding, I had actually looked at Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel as a potential wedding location if we had chosen to get married in Arkansas.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go inside the chapel as there was a wedding there that afternoon. But it was still stunning to see it from the outside and walk the grounds a little bit before driving back to our Airbnb.
Since this was our anniversary weekend, I didn’t pack our schedule with things to do like I sometimes want to (in order to see everything a town has to offer!). Also, we’ve both visited Hot Springs several times in the past, so I tried to prioritize rest and relaxation, seeing/doing things we haven’t done before, and eating at really good restaurants.
One of the most popular restaurants I came across when planning this trip was Grateful Head Pizza Oven & Tap Room. And I can confirm it was worth the hype. It was very pleasant to sit outside as the weather was perfect in the evenings, and they had several large fans running as well. The service was excellent, and the food was delicious. I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting town as a great pizza joint.
Day Three – Hot Springs National Park
After breakfast at our Airbnb, we first stopped at Kollective Coffee + Tea for some caffeine before tackling the downtown strip. They make all their coffee with beans from Onyx Coffee Lab which is a local Arkansas coffee roaster located here in Northwest Arkansas, so we are very familiar with it. Since that shop is on the far North side of town, we decided to start there and walk the whole strip.
We stopped in a few shops to cool off and look around, but we mainly wanted to visit the Hot Springs National Park visitor center and gift shop. We had visited together six years ago, but thought it was time for a revisit.
Fordyce Bathhouse, which has become the HSNP Visitor Center, is seriously so cool. It has been beautifully preserved, and currently also serves as a museum for guests to learn about the history of the park and of the bathhouses there. When put into the context of the late 1800s and early 1900s, it’s no wonder that people would travel long distances to experience the “healing properties” of the hot springs. When you think about it, having a hot bath every day, participating in the hiking program that several of the doctors created (which have now turned into the recreational hiking trails of the national park), having their muscles massaged, and taking steam baths … it’s no wonder that people felt healed after visiting Hot Springs!
After visiting Lamar Bathhouse (aka the national park gift shop) and buying my customary souvenir lapel pin, we walked down to Superior Bathhouse Brewery for lunch. It is a really cool restaurant (it’s the only brewery inside a U.S. national park!) with delicious food – I highly recommend the spicy elote corn nuggets! It’s also dog friendly, which was pretty fun. We sat next to a gentleman with a dog who was waiting for his wife who was showing their other dog at a dog show in the convention center down the street. The brewery was the perfect air conditioned place to wait with his pup while snacking on appetizers.
On our way back to the car we stopped at Mamoos Creamery in the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa for dessert. We had stayed at The Arlington last time we were in town, and it has a lot of really cool history as well. The ice cream was very good, and I browsed through Black Ribbon Books while I ate it because I just can’t resist a good bookstore.
The rest of the afternoon we spent resting, and then we hiked up to Balanced Rock Overlook to watch the sunset. It’s more of an uphill incline than I was expecting, but the view was definitely worth it. And since we visited on a Sunday evening, there was only one other person there at the same time as us. Hiking back down to the car in the dark was a bit of an adventure, but we were prepared with flashlights so we made it okay. And when we got back to the Airbnb we were rewarded with supper.
Day Four – Spa Treatments + Tacos
After a quick breakfast in the Airbnb, we packed up all of our things and made the long drive (about five minutes) to where we would be staying for the remainder of our trip. My husband had to switch from vacation mode to work mode, but I still had a few days of vacation left.
I started out by walking along the Grand Promenade, from one end to the other. It sits behind Bathhouse Row and connects the bathhouses to the former Army Navy Hospital and to the park’s hiking trails further up Hot Springs Mountain. Then I headed down to the main activity – a bathhouse row spa treatment!
I had chosen Quapaw Baths & Spa since, along with Buckstaff Bathhouse, it is one of only two historic Bathhouse Row bathhouses that are still running today. I had booked The Quapaw package, which included a private mineral bath, a Swedish massage, and foot conditioning and scalp massage. I could not have loved my experience there more. The staff was very professional, the facilities were very clean, and although the building was obviously very old, it only added to the overall experience.
After finally being able to check into our room at the Embassy Suites hotel, adjacent to the convention center where my husband’s conference was being held, I met up with one of his coworker’s wife and we headed back downtown (about a ten minute walk) for supper at Diablos Tacos & Mezcal. It was soooo good! Definitely one of my favorite meals of the whole trip. I had the elotes and calabacitas tacos, and both were excellent.
Day Five – Gangsters + State Parks
The breakfast at the Embassy Suites was delicious – I really enjoyed the omelette bar and the fresh fruit that was available. After breakfast, a few of us wives went back downtown to look at some of the shops that had been closed the day before, and around lunchtime we got appetizers and desserts at The Ohio Club, where famously Al Capone (and many other early 1900s celebrities) dined when he was in town. It was a really cool place, I would definitely go back for a full meal next time I’m in town.
After lunch, the other girls wanted to rest, so I drove out to Lake Ouachita State Park solo to reminisce on my days working at a summer camp there (it’s actually where my husband and I became friends six years before we ever started dating, so it’s a really special area for us!). Then for supper I joined my husband and his coworkers at The Brick House. It was good but nothing really special, and I probably wouldn’t go back unless I was with a big group.
Day Six – Home Sweet Home
After another delicious breakfast at the hotel, we packed up the car and made the drive back home. For some reason, our GPS took us a different way than normal, but I didn’t mind because it was slightly less curvy than the normal way. We stopped at Panera Bread in Fort Smith for lunch, which is always good, and made it home in time to do a load of laundry before we both had to go back to work the next day.
Final Thoughts
This was such a fun trip! It can be easy when visiting somewhere that you’ve been before to just do your favorite things you’ve always done there in the past, but I’m really proud of us for being open to new experiences while also prioritizing rest and relaxation. Hot Springs is a really special place in Arkansas, and definitely worth a visit if you’ve never been! It’s also the perfect place to plan an elopement … just saying 😉
*All my blog posts contain a selection of images that I’ve taken. This blog post contains images that I took myself for personal use and enjoyment and are not intended to be used for marketing purposes. Most of them were taken on a cell phone, and all of them are unedited. If you are interested in viewing some galleries of my couples, intimate wedding, and elopement photography, click here. If you’re interested in booking a wedding or session with me, I am more than happy to send you a full gallery upon request!
I’m a wife, a dog mom, a foodie, a wanderer, a registered nurse, and a portraits/elopements/branding photographer … and this blog will cover it all! If you enjoyed this post, first of all thank you, and second of all please follow me on Instagram + Facebook and sign up for my monthly newsletter to get exclusive wedding planning advice and access to all of my new (and old) freebies! If you have any questions about elopement photography, my journey from nursing to photography, or my time spent as a full-time RVer, drop a comment and I just might write a blog post answering your question (but I definitely will)!
*If you’d like to subscribe to my blog so that you won’t miss any future posts, enter your email and click the button below!