Showing Our #Hamptonality: Photos From Our Trip to Nashville

Last weekend I got the opportunity to take a complimentary trip on behalf of Hampton Hotels to show my #Hamptonality.  My destination was to be revealed only a few days before my scheduled trip date and of the ten cities that were part of the program, Hampton chose to send me to one of my favorite cities: Nashville!

I was absolutely thrilled because my girl Katie (also a columnist here at Ms. Career Girl) is from Nashville and her family lives there.  Trips to Nashville have been a huge part of our friendship ever since leaving college in 2006, so I immediately asked her to come with me to hang out for the weekend.  We had an absolute BLAST capturing our trip via photos, videos, instagrams, Vines and tweets.  We also had a few cocktails and a funny moments along the way.  Here’s a photo recap of our trip!

It all started when we met at O’Hare airport.

We couldn’t help but kick off our trip with some cocktails… it was Friday night after all.

This led to us almost missing our flight.  Seriously, the gate was closed and we somehow missed final boarding.  After a crabby lady did some magic on her computer, we got on our flight.  Phew. I don’t think our fellow passengers were too pleased with us.

 We made it!

When we arrived at the hotel, we were treated like royalty.

The staff knew exactly who we were and even left us this cute welcome basket in our room!

It was about 11pm on Friday night, and these beds were looking pretty tempting…

But we opted for wine instead.

Then we woke up with headaches (and no voices from talking so much) and Katie made us a to do list.

After a bit of R&R…
we were in desperate need of coffee…

So we put on our glitter shoes, and headed to the complimentary brunch downstairs in our pajamas…

I’m pretty sure it was the most amazing complimentary brunch I’ve ever had at a hotel.  It was also the first complimentary brunch I’ve ever had at a hotel.
After a bit of college-style getting ready, Katie got behind the wheel to give me a full blown driving tour of her hometown. Thank God they sent us to a city we knew…

We stopped at the famous Pancake Pantry where I gawked over the ridic. line – a normal occurrence. We were so, so glad that we had already eaten homemade waffles and a full spread at the hotel – no wait, no bill.

We made a few stops and partied in the streets…

And did hand stands… because V is for Vanderbilt, of course.

We took a trip to Greece without leaving town…

Tapped into Katie’s creative genius…
Then decided it was most definitely margarita time.

This lead to a fun game where we tried to put the word #Hamptonality into every pop song on the radio.

Next stop: say hi to Elvis.

And try on the ugliest and most expensive cowgirl boots I have ever seen.

Along the way we got a few funny reminders that we were in the south…

Then we instagrammed some more…

And we were so happy we could walk back to our #Hamptonality home from Broadway to make a pit stop for some more jet fuel…

Before we listened to some amazing live music at The Stage…

and hit up the Country Music Hall of Fame.

After a visit to Katie’s parents’ house, we ended the day by making videos in our spa masks!

It was an awesome trip and we hope to do it again soon!  Our video and photo footage, along with other bloggers’ footage in the program, will be used as part of a TV commercial which will roll out around May 20th!  We had a great experience with #hamptonality and appreciate the opportunity to be included!