Your Guide To A Girl’s Weekend in Greenville, South Carolina {Birthday Trip Recap}

It is time to celebrate another birthday! My mom, sister, and I like to plan weekend trips to celebrate milestone birthdays. The two who aren’t having the birthday make the arrangements and host the trip, and the birthday girl gets to enjoy the weekend.

To celebrate my mom’s 65th birthday, my sister and I planned a weekend with all the best food and shopping in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. We had a sweet weekend packed with so much fun!

Readers of Southern Living Magazine know Greenville is a bucket list travel destination, but so often the magazine leaves out the best spots! At the end of this post I’ll list all our stops so that you can add them to your itinerary for your next trip to the Upstate of South Carolina.

No, we didn’t plan to match. Does this happen in your family?

We kicked off the weekend with supper at Sidewall Pizza. They have amazing pizza, but don’t sleep on their appetizers and salads. We had a baked goat cheese appetizer that was so delicious!

I hosted everyone at my house, so my sister brought breakfasts and dessert. She made an amazing mint chocolate chip dessert that we ate on all weekend. It was the perfect way to wrap up the first few hours of the trip. We went to bed early the first night, knowing we needed to prepare ourselves for a long day of shopping. 🙂

The next morning my sister served delicious yogurt parfaits for breakfast. We headed out and worked our way through a giant combo Marshalls/HomeGoods store as well as Swoozies, a delightfully Southern party and home goods store.

Falls Park on the Reedy River is definitely the most touristy thing you can see in Greenville, but it’s pretty fun to have a park complete with waterfalls right in the middle of downtown.

Our lunch at Lazy Goat was a highlight of the trip. We made reservations and got a table outside overlooking the river. The truffle fries and prime rib sandwich were top favorites, but my Greek souvlaki dish was very delicious too.

We walked a few blocks over to enjoy this part of the park. Isn’t it gorgeous? This is right behind Spill The Beans Coffee and Ice Cream, so we couldn’t resist picking up a treat to enjoy as we walked back through downtown. I had a delicious cinnamon bun iced coffee and my sister said her yogurt was decadent.

That afternoon we did some more shopping at our favorite spots in Greenville, including Cottage Grove Vintage (below) that is always full of treasure!

There were many moments of conversation not pictured here – in my living room over morning coffee, at restaurants as we took our time with our meals, or even while we paused the movie to grab dessert in the evening.

It’s such a treat to have uninterrupted conversation, isn’t it? That’s one of the reasons we look forward to these trips (along with the food and shopping, of course!).

The last morning we shopped our way through Greer, my favorite area of the Upstate. You can’t miss Flying Fox coffee – it’s simply the best. Downtown Greer is full of lovely shops and boutiques that we enjoyed walking through.

After lunch at Panera, we spent time at my favorite thrift store, Miracle Hill, and one of the best Dollar Tree locations in town. You know we had to hit Dollar Tree. 🙂

We wrapped up the weekend here, enjoying a production of The Sound of Music. Greenville has several great theatres (which I share in this post), and this was a great show that we all loved.

Here are links and locations for all the places we visited.

Food

• Sidewall Pizza – 3598 Pelham Road, Greenville, SC 29615
• The Lazy Goat – 170 River Place, Greenville, SC 29601
• Flying Fox Coffee – 215 Trade Street, Greer, SC 29651
• Spill the Beans Coffee and Ice Cream – 531 South Main Street, Greenville, SC 29601

Shopping: Greenville

• Marshalls & Homegoods – The Shoppes at Greenridge – 1125 Woodruff Rd, Greenville, SC 29607
• Swoozies – The Shoppes at Greenridge – 1125 Woodruff Rd, Greenville, SC 29607
• The OOPS Company (Clothing) – 101 Verdae Blvd, Greenville, SC 29607
• Cottage Grove Vintage & Cottage Grove Gift and Home – 1607 Laurens Rd, Greenville, SC 29607
• Vintage Now Modern – 633 South Main Street, Greenville, SC 29601

Shopping: Greer

• Urban Petals Lifestyle Boutique – 105 Victoria Street, Greer, SC 29651
• Olive’s Branch Gallery – 103 Victoria Street, Greer, SC 29651
• Plunder Antiques – 214 Trade Street, Greer, SC 29651
• Miracle Hill Thrift Store – 14179 E Wade Hampton Blvd, Greer, SC 29651
• Dollar Tree – 14001 E Wade Hampton Blvd, Greer, SC 29651 and 200 Spartanburg Hwy, Lyman, SC 29365

Entertainment

• Spartanburg Little Theatre – 200 E St John St, Spartanburg, SC 29302
• Falls Park on the Reedy – 601 S Main St, Greenville, SC 29601

Hotel

• Hampton Inn – 112 N Main St, Greer, SC 29650 (Our original plan was to stay here, but after rescheduling the weekend due to sickness, it wasn’t possible to book a room on our new dates. This is a new hotel with free parking and walkable access to dining, coffee, and shopping in downtown Greer.)

Once again, we didn’t plan to match. 🙂 Here are recaps of the other birthday trips we’ve taken:

• Mom’s 60th Birthday Trip to Boone, NC
• Celebrating My Sister’s 30th Birthday at Lake Keowee

Thanks for coming along on this trip recap! I hope I’ve inspired you to plan a weekend away with your favorite ladies. ❤