My Utah Travel Guide!

Ah, it’s finally here! My travel guide to Utah!

If you know me, you know my love for Utah runs DEEP! I have lived in Utah my entire life and love it more and more as each year goes on. I constantly change my mind about my favorite season of the year and am so grateful to live in such a beautiful place. It really is the best!

Whether you are traveling here or live here already and want new places to try, this post is for you! I hope it is helpful to find some local restaurants/businesses that I love.

Let’s start with the airport…

Salt Lake City International Airport

Salt Lake City Airport: you will most likely fly into the SLC airport which is a sight in and of itself! It’s a brand new airport and so beautiful. If you have some time to spare before or after your flights, check out our restaurant guide in collaboration with Visit Utah HERE! The airport has great, local food options so be sure to check them out!

Next up, let’s discuss arguably the most important part of traveling…

Food:

First off, just follow my food Instagram account @utahgrubs and start ‘saving’ where you want to eat! You can also filter through our hashtags like #ParkCityGrubs, #StGeorgeGrubs, etc. Some randoms are using up the hashtag (😤) but you’ll have a good starting point there.

Here are some of my favorite restaurants! I also put together a giant master list of this guide on Google Maps below that shows even more places you should try! I wanted the map to be an easy way that you could look at visually, depending on where you are located, so you know where to hit up closest to you.

Here’s a little list of some of my favorites:

• Thirst Drinks (duh!) Order the Thirsty Mom (if you like sparkling water) and grab some beignets!
• Pretty Bird Chicken
• Vessel Kitchen
• Nielsen’s Frozen Custard
• Beaumont Cafe – I am in love with their chopped salad + fries. And every pastry available!
• Tulie bakery – cute area to walk around! Get the olive oil cake or the almond croissant.
• Sweetaly Gelato – pistachio gelato always.
• Cubby’s – one of my favorite fast casual restaurants. Love the wild rice + kale salad and sweet potato fries with the chipotle dipping sauce.
• Mr. Charlie’s Chicken – love this local restaurant! Similar to Raising Canes if you like that.
• Rich’s Bagels – asiago bagel for life
• Spilled Milk
• Banbury Cross Donuts
• Sapa Sushi
• Nomad East
• Pizzeria Limone
• Market Street Grill – fish + steakhouse that we love to go to to celebrate
• The Dodo – get the dirty bird salad and the banana cream pie!!!! Don’t ask questions.
• Bocata in the City Creek food court
• Sweet Biscuits & Limeade
• The Orange Peel – thai coconut, avocado, and almond bubble tea smoothie
• Pizzeria Tasso (in Holladay)
• Roc Taco (pictured above!)
• Kitchen Eighty-Eight
• Sobe Eats – get the mojito
• The Protein Foundry
• Lola’s on 9th & 9th
• HSL
• Ruby Snap Cookies

Oh man, I could go on and on when it comes to food but follow Utah Grubs, check out Yelp reviews, and eat local as much as you can while here. You won’t be disappointed!

Shopping:

• City Creek Center Mall (it’s our big downtown mall with Nordstrom, etc. Be sure to check out Albion Fit & Roolee! Two local brands that I love)
• Koo de Ker – Kyong’s shop is so beautiful! I love all of her dresses. Go grab a cookie at Chip Cookies or ice cream at Normal right after! They’re all right next to each other.
• Foundation Goods – oh, just my dream store. I am manifesting that exact same kitchen in my home one day. Not joking.
• Four and Twenty Sailors – such a darling shop with things for kids, women and amazing suits for men! Mention OLIVIA10 for a discount when you go.
• Katie Waltman – beautiful new location in Salt Lake! Very close to Four and Tweny Sailors if you go there.
• Jolley’s Gift & Floral – fabulous Diet Coke stop too!
• Amy Boutique (Holladay)
• Knot & Spool (Holladay)
• The Fox Shop (Holladay)
• Highland Gardens (Highland)
• Sun River Gardens (Orem)
• Walker Farms
• Fashion Place Mall is our other mall we go to often. They have a Zara, Urban Outfitters, Lululemon, etc.

Things to do:

Oh, there’s so much to do in Utah it’s hard to even know where to start! It definitely depends on what time of year you come to Utah, but try to explore up in the mountains as much as you can! Here are some more ideas of what you could do below:

• Explore downtown SLC. See City Creek Center, go to the Visitors Center at Temple Square, ride scooters around just to see the city! This is random but go to Harmon’s for your groceries, it’s my favorite grocery store!
• Go to Capitol Hill (especially end of March when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom!)
• Walk around the wildflowers during end of July/early August up in Albion basin
• Sugar House Park is a great park for kids
• Utah’s Hogle Zoo
• Discovery Gateway is also a fun museum for kids downtown SLC
• Go to a Bee’s Baseball game, Utah Jazz basetball game, etc.
• See a show that is playing at Eccles Theater
• See Ballet West performance of The Nutcracker if visiting in December 🩰 I was in it every year growing up!
  • If you’re heading more down South:
• Tibble Fork Reservoir
• Go to Thanksgiving Point if you have kids and need things to do. Great museums, butterfly bisophere etc. (in Lehi)

Hotels:

When looking for hotels, I highly suggest you look using Somewhere Devine! It will give you the best price possible AND you are giving back at the same time!

Here are my four favorites. I clearly don’t stay at hotels too often in Utah since, ya know, I live here 😆

• The Snowpine Lodge – up Little Cottonwood Canyon and just INCREDIBLE! Seriously one of my favorite restaurants too! Please get the chilaquiles for breakfast.
• The Grand America is a favorite of so many. Beautiful rooms and I love their pools (both outdoor and indoor)
• We also LOVE The Little America! It’s the sister hotel to The Grand and is just as beautiful! Just cheaper.
• Sundance Resort – located up Provo canyon and UNREAL beautiful! You can even hike Timpanogos from here if you’re up for a long, beautiful hike.

Hikes:

Oh my goodness. Hiking in Utah is my FAVORITE. Every season (besides winter when it’s like 10 degrees🤪) is so incredible. Just wake up a little earlier if you go in summer for the heat. I would highly suggest familiarizing yourself with the AllTrails app if you love hiking. I think you can even follow me on there if you want to see what hikes I’ve done. I love reading reviews and seeing what people say about the trails and parking and whatnot to help get a feel of what I’m getting myself into.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

• Millcreek Canyon – this canyon is the closest to my house and an absolute favorite!
  • Pipeline Trail is the one I try to do every other week in summer. It’s a flat trail that runs with the mountain and is a blast.
  • Grandeur Peak is a favorite! Gorgeous view from the top.
  • Salt Lake Overlook via Desolation Trail
• Lake Blanche – a hard one but SO beautiful in the fall. The lake is breathtaking at the top.
• Bonneville Shoreline Trail – this trail runs for a long time but my favorite portion of the trail is the Z trail in the cove.
• Living Room lookout trail
• Lake Mary (to Lake Catherine) via Brighton or Alta
• Donut Falls (easy for kids)
• Mount Timpanogos – I sugggest starting this hike around 2-3 AM. Worth it for the sunrise at the top!
• Silver Lake
• Bell Canyon Trail (this one gets harder towards the top but the waterfall is amazing!)
• Bloods Lake

Park City, UT

I am sure there are people with way more robust guides to Park City than this one. But I just wanted to add a couple of favorites here!

• Walk around Main Street and shop!
• FiveSeeds – the BEST breakfast
• Nosh – get the fawaffle (falafel waffle)
• Handle
• Cafe Terigo
• Versante – also an amazing hotel here to stay at! We LOVE Stephanie the owner.

Midway/Heber

We love going up to Midway/Heber every fall on conference weekends. Here are our favorite spots to hit up!

• BelJar Home – cute home boutique
• Lola’s Street Kitchen
• Midway Mercantile – make a reservation
• Judy’s Donuts
• Dottie’s Kolaches – they have Thirst Drinks and Ruby Snap cookies here!
• Red Mango (inside a grocery store and some of my favorite frozen yogurt!)

St. George/Zion:

My parents own a vacation home down in St. George so we make it down there quite often. The hiking and views are incredible but unfortunately, the food scene struggles a bit there. I’ve talked to several restaurant owners that are hoping to change that soon (🤞🏼) but here is a list of where we always go when we’re down there! I’m not saying these places are bad, I’m just saying St. George is definitely not a foodies mecca.

• Drive into Snow Canyon for SURE. It’s so beautiful!
• Veyo Pies up in Snow Canyon
• Zion National Park – love Angel’s Landing (be careful!)
• Love Orange Peel always! I put my order up above
• Viva Chicken
• Angelica’s
• Nielsen’s Frozen Custard
• Swig
• Mad Pita

And do you want to know the worst part of this entire guide? I don’t have anything on Moab! 🙈 I am hoping to go this fall on a huge foodie tour and will keep you posted on the entire thing!

Here is the list I put together on list on Google Maps that might help you visually see the places closest to you that I love. I’ll add more as I go, too!

That’s all for now. Love you all and really hope this helps!

-Liv