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Known as the Equality State, Wyoming is full of many mountain ranges, is home to Yellowstone National Park (the first of the US National parks), had the first ever elected female governor, hosts the world’s largest outside rodeo, and it was the first state that granted women the right to vote (now you see where it got it’s state motto from). AND you can also see I’ve been on the road a lot doing some trivia. Anyways… now that YOU know a little bit more about Wyoming, so does Nicole.

My bestie since the 6th grade came to visit me in Wyoming and I had to show her around! We had the best time ever and were non stop busy doing things from hiking to shopping, sightseeing and more. It was such a fun visit and I am so happy that she came and got to see what life is like out here.

Keep reading along to see what all we did and how we spent our days! Maybe it will entice you to plan your next trip to Wyoming, or even give you some good ideas on what to do if you’re ever in this area. (:

DAY 1:
I picked Nicole up from the airport in Salt Lake City. We checked in to our hotel and freshened up before we went out for drinks and dinner in the city. Nicole did some planning beforehand and we decided to try this cool place called White Horse. Suuuper cute and good, too! After that, we went next door to a place called the Bodega. Turns out, it was a speak easy, but sadly we had to have reservations and they were already full for the night!

DAY 2:
Time to head to WYOMING! After a delicious breakfast at the hotel, Nicole and I decided to get some local coffee from a coffee shop that she saw on Instagram. We went with the seasonal option (LOL) and got pumpkin flavored lattes. Pretty good! Preparing for our long drive, I decided to take the route that took us through Idaho Falls so that we could stop at Target and grab anything we might need for our few days ahead! The drive was astonishing, of course and there was so much to see along the way home. Nicole and I had great conversation and kept each other entertained all the way to Idaho Falls. I forced her to try Dutch Bros Coffee and she got a caramel apple smoothie. Around two hours later, we finally made it to Jackson Hole and just in time for our reservations at the Jackson Hole Winery.

The Winery was so much fun and the scenery was so incredible. I haven’t really been to a winery before, so this was so much fun and I really enjoyed it! After the Winery, we went through Wendy’s and grabbed a 4 for 4 and headed to String Lake to watch the sunset.

DAY 3:
Good morning! We had an early morning and headed to Cowboy Coffee to get some work done remotely before starting our day. We both did some work on our laptops for about two hours and sipped on a green tea matcha latte. After that, we walked around town and decided to stop at Merry Piglets for lunch. You can’t go wrong with this place! Now time for a hike!!! We hiked Phelps Lake. The foliage was absolutely incredible and so was the fall breeze along the hike. Nicole refused to jump off the famous rock, but I did get some good pictures of her, at-least. After our hike, we went back in to town and shopped around. Nicole got to check out all of the shops and we got matching Abby Paffrath hats (a local batik artist and designer).

We went into a sushi shop and enjoyed some sushi and dumplings for dinner. After that, Nicole and I went bar hopping around Jackson Hole and of course had to go sit on the saddles in the Cowboy Bar. We checked out The Rose and The Wort, too. It was a rainy night, but it was still so much fun!

DAY 4:
YELLOWSTONE DAY! We woke up at 6:15am to be on the road to Yellowstone by 7am. My coworker planned our route for us because we were both first-timers when it came to Yellowstone.

We started at the South Entrance and made our way towards Old Faithful first. We made it with 20 minutes to spare before Old Faithful erupted so we were on a great schedule. It was so cool! After Old Faithful, we headed towards Grand Prismatic and kept going along that route. We saw so many cool things!

Following along that route, we ended our day seeing mud volcanoes and Lake Yellowstone. Honestly, it was a great first time trip to Yellowstone and something I am sure the both of us will always remember.

Leaving Yellowstone, we decided to head back to Jackson Hole and grab a burger from Liberty Burger! Afterwards, we headed back to the cabin for the night.

DAY 5:
A restful morning! We woke up and stopped at Dornan’s and each grabbed a mini bottle of champagne to drink at the top of the gondola for later on in the day. We headed to town for the Arts Festival. We walked around and saw all of the local work and Nicole picked up a piece that she loved. After art-browsing, we decided to grab some food and margaritas at El Abuelito. It was delicious, per usual. From there, it was time to check out Teton Village. I showed Nicole around where I work as a market researcher and conveniently ran into some people from Brandon, Mississippi, too! We rode the gondola to the top and grabbed the most popular waffle there is! We popped our champagne, got out the orange juice we packed, and enjoyed mimosas and a brown sugar waffle. What a sight!

Then it started sprinkling rain… So we headed back down and decided to go hike Taggart Lake!

DAY 6:
We woke up at 5:45am and got ready to take some photos while the sun was rising against the mountains! We knew we had a long day ahead of us, so we wanted to make the most of it.

We took so many fun photos in Western clothes while the sun was rising, making the mountains glow in a reddish- pink tint. It was so pretty!

After our mini photoshoot, we stopped at the Cowboy Coffee drive-thru to get drinks and burritos for the road and started our way back to Salt Lake City, UT. What a foggy morning…
We drove and drove and this time our route was through Wyoming! It was also a very pretty drive! Finally, we made it to Utah and stopped for lunch at IN-N-OUT. Yuummmmmm!!! A delicious hamburger and Nicole even got her fries “animal style”. We both recommend trying it that way!

We then got to our hotel and relaxed before heading to dinner around 5pm at this delicious sushi place called Sapa. We got nice cocktails and sake, too.

After sushi, we waited for a friend from high school to get off work. Nicole and I decided to check out Whiskey Street. It was a super fun bar with a lot of history, too. Then, we went to Lake Effect and met up with an old friend from high school. We all had such a great time and it was so good to catch up and talk about our lives and what we are all up to these days.

DAY 7:
Arrivederci! After enjoying another hotel breakfast with Nicole, I tossed her out of my car and said see ya… JK! But I did drop her off at the airport, made sure she was ok, then headed back towards Wyoming!

It was such a fun time and I am glad Nicole got to see a little bit of the mountains and what it is like out here in the wild, wild west! Til next time…