Hey, friends! Lauren here. It’s time for another vacay recap, one of my favorite types of posts! I love reading about other people’s trips and learning about new places to add to my Bucket List so it’s fun when we can share our experiences too. My husband and I started a tradition a few years ago with my cousin, Krista and her husband, Greg, and it’s quickly become one of the things we look forward to most each year. You can read more on our past trips to Sedona, AZ and Gatlinburg, TN!
One night when the four of us were out, we decided to make a Bucket List of all the places we wanted to travel together. We aren’t too picky, other than making sure there are plenty of outdoor activities (hiking is a must!) and good food and drink options, preferably within walking distance of wherever we stay.
This year we decided on Lake Tahoe! It was close to the top of the list and when we found out one of our favorite bands, Old Dominion, was playing there it was just the nudge we needed to book it. We booked flights and a condo via Airbnb right on the beach in South Lake Tahoe for Wednesday to Sunday leading into the 4th of July.
We headed down to Milwaukee on Wednesday morning to catch our 10 AM flight. I’ll spare you the details of our flight drama as I feel like delays, cancellations, missed flights and terrible customer service are just the norm these days and ultimately, we made it to our destination, which is all that matters. We flew into Reno, got our rental car and hit the road. It only took us about an hour or so to get to South Lake Tahoe and outside of some of the windy mountain roads, it was uneventful.
The four of us are pretty go with the flow type people, so we didn’t plan or book too much in advance of the trip, outside of the concert on Friday night. Thankfully, we did plan some things and had an Instacart order from a local grocery store arrive just as we did to our condo! We settled in, unpacked our drinks and snacks and took in the amazing view of Lake Tahoe from our balcony. It was the perfect slow down moment after a long, stressful day of travel. Shortly after that, we consulted trusty Yelp to find a place we could walk to for dinner.
We decided to try MacDuff’s, which was less than a mile away and ended up being so good! They had a great menu and super friendly waitstaff. Highly recommend the pizza, spaghetti and their famous chicken nuggets. Reading that now makes it sound like we ordered off the children’s menu, but I assure you, it was all on their normal menu and was all delicious!
We headed back to the condo to crash after a long day of travel. We had a big hike on tap for the morning and wanted to rest up. Some friends of ours recommended Mount Tallac for a beautiful, challenging hike and we thought we would tackle that one first with fresh legs.
We woke up early (thanks to the time change) and got ready for a long, 10-mile hike. We packed our backpacks with trail mix, other snacks, water, Gatorade, Liquid IV and sunscreen. Our biggest challenge of the trip was trying to figure out how to dress! The mornings and evenings were chilly and there was still snow on some of the hikes, but it was getting into the upper 80’s during the day! Krista and I wore leggings, a tank top and long sleeves to start, which was the perfect choice. The trailhead was only about a 10-minute drive from our condo, and we were able to park with no issues. We loved the hike! It was a great workout with stunning views of Lake Tahoe, 2 smaller lakes and many waterfalls. We knew from the All Trails app that there was still a decent amount of snow near the summit so we weren’t sure how close we’d be able to get (since we are very novice hikers in our normal tennis shoes) but we made it just shy of a mile from summit before we decided to turn around for safety reasons. The snow was melting like crazy, and we made some questionable decisions regarding our footwear and some of the passes but all in all, it was a success! It ended up being about 8 miles total and took us about 6 hours. We highly recommend this hike if you visit.
By the time we got back to the car, we were ready for a late lunch. We headed back toward the condo to a brewery that we passed on our way to the trailhead. We grabbed a table outside at Cold Water Brewing, ordered a hard-earned beer and some food. We played cards (Rummy 500 is our favorite!) while we waited and then devoured our meals. Highly recommend this place! After lunch we went back to the condo to take much needed showers, relax for a bit and get ready for more exploring. We decided we wanted to rent some kayaks during the trip so while we were hanging out at the condo, we ended up booking rentals through Clearly Tahoe at Sand Harbor for the next morning.
We left the condo around 3:00 and walked toward Heavenly Village. Our condo was perfectly located, and it only took us about 20 minutes before we were ordering at South Lake Brewing. We played cards for a while and decided to check out some of the shops. We worked up an appetite while shopping and decided to pop into a place called Flagstick Pub, a very cool indoor mini golf course. We didn’t play but shared some nachos and they were delicious. We ventured on to Harrah’s for a bit to check out the casino before heading back to the condo to get some sleep before another early morning.
Once again, due to the time change we were all up and ready to go before our alarms. Our kayak rental reservation wasn’t until 8:00 but we read that we needed to get to Sand Harbor before 7 AM when they opened the gates for parking or we might not get a spot and wow, they were right. We made the 30-minute drive up and had to wait in line to get in. People were arriving for what looked like a full day on the beach, setting up their umbrellas, tents, etc. It looked like such a great place to spend the day! We found a spot and walked around the park for a bit until it was time to get in our clear bottom kayaks. The customer service was awesome, and we were off before we knew it.
It was incredible to be able to see so far down in the water! They said the depth clarity was around 80 feet – the clearest it’s been in a long time. What I was not prepared for was how cold the water was. Whew! It rarely even gets to 60 degrees, even in the warmest months of summer. We kayaked for about an hour and a half and had a great time taking in our epic surroundings. Pictures just do not do it justice. We headed back and were ready to go to brunch. When we left the park, we realized they weren’t kidding about closing off the parking and not letting one in until much later in the afternoon! Pro-tip: If you want to get to the beach or kayaking there, go early and make sure you have cash for parking.
Since we were on the east side of the lake, we decided to head north and check out Incline Village for brunch. We found a cute little spot called Sage Leaf and it was a great choice! The food and Bloody Mary’s were delicious. After brunch, we walked across the parking lot to grab some cold brew before making the 45-minute drive back to the condo.
We decided to take advantage of our condo being right on the beach and hung out for a bit to soak up some sun. The boys were brave enough to take a dip, although they didn’t last very long in the water – it was more of a cold plunge. We had such a relaxing couple of hours before we had to get ready again. We had reservations for a wine cruise around the lake at 4:00 and the Old Dominion concert after that!
We got dressed and headed over to the marina for our reservations with Tahoe Tastings. We were immediately welcomed aboard a cool wooden boat by the hosts and introduced ourselves to the 2 other couples on board. We tasted 8 wines and ate a delicious charcuterie board that we ordered ahead of time as we chatted with the others and took in the scenery. The hosts were so knowledgeable about the area so it was fun to listen to them and ask them questions. We went over to Emerald Bay which was gorgeous and then headed back to the marina. We highly recommend this wine cruise!
We were on a bit of a time crunch as the wine tour ended at 6:00 and the concert started at 7:00 so we quickly headed back to the condo to do an outfit change and grab some energy drinks (we knew we’d be up past our 9 PM bedtime 😊). Once again, it was so hard to determine what to wear because it was hot but we knew once the sun went down it would get cold again. We opted for jeans and tanks to start and brought our jackets with us.
We took an Uber down to the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey’s and were so pleasantly surprised with the venue. Short lines to get in, easy security, it was fairly small and had a ton of drink tents and a big bathroom area. I’d see another concert there in a heartbeat! We grabbed drinks and found some shade to hang out in and kill time before the show started. The openers (Frankie Ray and Kassi Ashton) were really fun and we were having a great time. The sun was starting to set just as Old Dominion came on and seeing them in that setting with the mountains in the background, the perfect weather, everyone having so much fun… it was probably my favorite concert experience to date! They put on such an amazing show, sounded so good live and had a blast up there. I can’t stop thinking about it to this day and have them on Spotify on repeat! The concert came to an end, and we knew we wanted to hike again in the morning so we headed back to the condo via Uber and had no issues finding our ride and getting home.
We slept in a little bit the next morning since we were up a little later but we’re all excited to get moving. We wanted to try to get to Emerald Bay again and see it from land since we loved seeing it from the water the day before. Once we got close, we found a parking spot but quickly realized we were not in the right area. We decided to stay where we were since it was so busy and we got lucky with parking so thanks to All Trails again, we found a different trail to hike. We headed up the Bayview Trailhead and quickly felt the effects of the drinks from the night before. It was a tough hike and the steep incline definitely had us sweating off our slight hangovers! It felt good though and once again, there were beautiful views and waterfalls along the way.
We went back to the condo to shower and get dressed and figure out what to do with the rest of our day. We knew we wanted to grab some lunch and play cards so we found Lake Tahoe AleWorx (Yelp for the win once again). It was so much fun! It was a self-service bar where you just swiped a card and paid per ounce, so we were able to try different beers and their pizza was delicious. There was live music, so we enjoyed the beautiful weather on the patio and played cards for a while. It was the perfect way to spend a couple hours. On the way back to the condo, we stopped at another outdoor area called the Hangar. They had a bunch of beers on tap, a food truck and a bunch of places outside to sit and hang out.
By this time, it was Saturday and the 4th of July weekend so things were starting to get really busy everywhere, including the beach and the water. It was fun to people watch and chat with our condo neighbors as we relaxed on the beach. We played some cards and then decided to go for a walk down toward Heavenly Village to find a place for a cocktail and some dinner. We wandered into Shedcat, a craft cocktail and farm-to-table restaurant and distillery. We had a nice chat with the owner and learned his story. He is on a mission to level up the restaurants in the area by sourcing all of his ingredients locally and creating creative cocktails. Highly recommend if you are ever in the area! We walked a bit further to Burger Me for dinner which was also very good. We made the walk back to the condo and headed to bed with our alarms set for 4 AM to ensure we made the hour drive back to Reno in plenty of time for our 6:30 AM flight.
Thankfully we had no issues getting back home! It was such a great trip and we left feeling so grateful that we can continue to check these cool places off our Bucket List.
Pro-tips:
- All Trails app for hiking!
- Pack for the cool weather at night
- Splitwise is the best app for adding all expenses together and splitting at the end
- We always rent our cars through Avis and joined Avis Preferred (free!) which makes it so easy to get your car via the app without having to wait in long lines. We also pay for it in advance so we are guaranteed a vehicle upon arrival.
MMSM partners with affiliate platforms where commission may be earned based on clicks and or purchases. Affiliate links help bloggers like us to fund the free content that we provide on our blogs.
