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Making the most of 24 hours in Huntsville, Alabama

Have you ever wanted to visit a state that you don’t usually hear much about just out of curiosity to see what it is like?

Growing up in New England and really only traveling in and around New England I never really had any interest in the ‘south,’ other than visiting Florida.  

I think I was like every other kid on the planet that has dreams of visiting the mouse. Yes you read that right the mouse, also known as Disneyworld. 

My extreme interest in places changed once I spent time living abroad in London in 2001.

The travel bug and obsession is real and my love for hopping flights has become a bit of an addiction. Not only is this addiction real, but I absolutely love road trips, well, trips that are not longer than 6-7 hours, as you may know sitting for too long, makes your butt fall asleep, hah!

I have learned to travel hack using points for flights, hotels, rental cars and the like. 

Ironically I am writing this article while sitting on a flight using my Southwest points.

Now that takes me back to making the most of the 48 hours I had free and didn’t have any other plans. I packed a bag without a hotel booked and headed South for Huntsville, Alabama. 

I made a pit stop on the way and discovered a ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ sign and realized that I didn’t know much about Alabama and the fact Huntsville is a thriving city with 500,000 people and growing. Even the FBI built a new HQ there and created over 4,000 jobs as well as a large engineering population with the U.S. Space and Rocket center, along with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

It may not be the size of Los Angeles, which makes it sweeter to not have to fight traffic and over 35 million people.  It surely has plenty to do including a couple great restaurants, one of which I discovered while venturing out around the city.

I found an amazing oyster bar named Sea Salt, that had opened 6 months prior, so it appears it was a good time to visit. I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered one of my favorite foods, Manhattan clam chowder, which is the non-creamy version of New England clam chowder and added fresh crab to it. You can choose either crap or lobster, which are both good choices, but being a New England girl and having easy access to lobster I chose fresh crab. The soup was incredible and very filling, but I still wanted to try something else.

I  proceeded to order more food, which if you visit Sea Salt in Huntsville the raw tuna tacos are divine.  These tacos were a delight after being kindly interrupted by conversation from a gentleman at the bar. I mistakenly thought this gentleman was a traveler like me, but turns out he was a local well known photographer and this is where our friendship began.

My short conversation turned into making new friends at this lovely oyster bar, which then proceeded to having a tour guide around town that evening and any future visits to Huntsville will be guided by new friends.

I realize this information may be irrelevant to you, but I travel for the food, sights and my other favorite part which is meeting new people throughout my travels. 

From Sea Salt oyster bar we continued onto Stella’s down the street and then onto a speak easy across the way. The funniest part about being in a new city, is acting like you’re clueless about what the city has to offer, but still trying to fit in without looking like tourists. So, my new friend basically got us into the speak easy, that you need a special password for. 

We had a blast, as we befriended more friends and ended the evening laughing and enjoying the speak easy.  In a nutshell, make sure you visit Huntsville, Alabama and walk around the town, explore the space museum, which I have yet to do and grab a bite downtown at Seal Salt or my next trip will include the same ownership group of Sea Salt who also own well known Restaurant the Purveyor. (as noted on the photo above).

Last but not least before I left Huntsville and I stopped by this quirky yet unique art space known to many locals as the Lowe Mills Arts district (building). I walked around this old mill that contains many different artists, but to my surprise Wednesday is not really the day to go as most artists are not in their studios until Friday and Saturday’s. The hours they advertise are opening Wednesday- Sunday, but I highly recommend going on a weekend if you want to see more artists and open shops.  As a huge lover of art I found a few cool unique artists, but nothing that really caught my eye, but still a unique place to visit if you find the time.

Until the next trip to Huntsville, when I have more to report and more food forward photos. 

If you ever have a recommendation of places, sites or cities to visit, please reach out as I always love recommendations and hope you enjoyed reading. Please subscribe if you are not subscribed to my emails and share my site with your friends, family and fellow foodies and travelers.