CHOOSE CHATT™ BLOG

Where to Take Your Weekend House Guests This Winter

There’s never a bad time to visit the Scenic City—and that includes the winter season! From Christmas and New Year festivities to indoor entertainment to escape the cold, there’s no shortage of Chattanooga attractions for your house guests this winter. Read on to see just a few of the options our beautiful city has to offer.

 

For Holiday Lovers:

weaver tree farans

Christmas Tree Farms - Weaver Tree Farms

Nothing gets the Christmas festivities started like picking out a beautiful Christmas tree for your home. Starting Friday, November 29th, Weaver Tree Farms opens their Christma tree stand off of Signal Mountain Road.This North Carolina-based company offers Frasier Fir Christmas trees as well as wreaths and other holiday decorations. Stop by to pick out a tree, warm your hands by a bonfire, and start spreading some Christmas cheer with your guests!

chattanooga rock city enchanted garden of lights

Chattanooga Christmas Lights

The Scenic City has no shortage of twinkling lights and dazzling displays to enjoy with your guests this Christmas season. For those near Lookout Mountain, take your guests to see Rock City’s Enchanted Garden of Lights, featuring over one million Christmas lights for visitors to enjoy on top of the mountain. Elsewhere in Chattanooga, NoogaLights offers synchronized Christmas light shows that are sure to delight your guests. Visit the walk-through display at the Chattanooga Choo Choo or opt for the drive-through display at Soddy-Daisy Park.

Ice on the Landing

What better way to enjoy the winter weather than in an open-air ice skating rink in downtown Chattanooga? Take your guests to the First Horizon Pavilion for Ice on the Landing, a classic winter tradition that every winter lover will enjoy. The rink is open from November 24th, 2024, to January 2nd, 2025, so make sure to take your guests while you can!

For Adult Friends:

The Coker Museum antique cars is where to take your house guests this winter..

The Coker Museum

Located in a 13,000-square-foot building in Chattanooga’s downtown area, inside Honest Charley Speed Shop, The Coker Museum is the personal collection of Chattanooga’s Corky Coker. Some fully restored, others in their original form, the collection includes more than 130 vintage cars, trucks, motorcycles, and buses, plus a few airplanes. If your house guests are car lovers, they’ll enjoy a self-guided tour of the museum, with most visitors spending anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes at the museum.

The Comedy Catch

Who doesn’t love a good laugh? Located inside the Chattanooga Choo Choo, The Comedy Catch is a comedy venue featuring local and national comedians and entertainers, as well as an on-site bar and grill. A full list of acts can be found on The Comedy Catch’s website, but upcoming comedians include Derrick Stroup, Justin Smith, and John Hastings.

Chattanooga Pinball Museum is a good place to take your weekend house guests this winter.

Chattanooga Pinball Museum

For friends with nostalgia, check out the Chattanooga Pinball Museum, offering pinball and other classic arcade games in downtown Chattanooga. For $20, you get a wristband that allows you all-day “come and go” access to classic arcade games like Galaga, Frogger, Street Fighter, Centipede, and Joust, plus a wide variety of vintage pinball machines.

Yellow Racket Records

Located in a brick building on East Main Street, this new and “pre-loved” vinyl shop has been open in Chattanooga since August 2020. In addition to a wide selection of vinyl records, the shop offers t-shirts and live shows. Yellow Racket Records believes that music is an experience, so bring your house guests by to peruse the vinyls, drink some coffee, and relax in comfortable chairs as you chat with the shop’s knowledgeable staff.

For Guests with Kids:

Creative Discovery Museum is a fantastic place to take your weekend house guests.

Creative Discovery Museum

Located in the heart of downtown just steps away from the Tennessee Aquarium, Creative Discovery Museum is Chattanooga’s hands-on museum for kids. Exhibits include a STEM Zone with robotics and energy galleries, a Make It station, a water exhibit that invites guests to get their hands wet investigating a lock and dam, and a three-story climbing structure.

Infinity Flux

A locally owned comic book store founded in 2014, this shop specializes in new and used comics, vintage action figures, posters, trading cards, retro video games, and tabletop games. Located on Hixson Pike just minutes from Northshore, Infinity Flux is home to hundreds of comic books organized by character: GhostRider, Batman, X-Men, Wolverine, Swamp Thing, The New Mutants, Avatar, Star Wars, Transformers, and more. You’ll also find towers of FunkoPop!, Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, and perhaps a He-Man or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle straight from the 1980s. 

High Point Climbing and Fitness is a great place to take your house guests this winter

High Point Climbing and Fitness

For kids with an affinity for heights, the Kid Zone at High Point Climbing offers colorful, themed indoor rock climbing with a bouldering wall and auto belays. With two Chattanooga locations, Downtown and Riverside, High Point-themed challenges for kids include a giant spider web, letters from the alphabet, a brick building, and a long giraffe’s neck. At the downtown location, the room features a collection of black skyscrapers with bright yellow windows. Here, kids set their sights on stepping from building to building, then take a leap off the top.

For an Older Crowd:

Tennessee Valley Railroad is a good place to head to with your weekend house guests.

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum

The only regularly scheduled, full-size train rides in Tennessee, Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum preserves and displays railroad artifacts and takes passenger trains along historic routes in the area. New to 2023, the museum combines the luxury of teatime with the nostalgia of the train. The Homefront Tea Room experience is a 75-minute high tea and a 65-minute ride on the Missionary Ridge Local. The train ride begins at Grand Junction Station, crosses four bridges, and travels through the pre-Civil War Missionary Ridge Tunnel. The tour includes a turntable demonstration and a brief stop inside a train restoration shop.

Chattanooga Whiskey Experimental Distillery.

In the 1860s, Chattanooga made a move to become one of North America’s “hubs” for distilling. It was home to more than 30 distilleries before Prohibition brought whiskey production to a halt in 1909. In 2015, Chattanooga Whiskey released “100,” the first whiskey made in town in 100 years. Today you can stop by the Experimental Distillery for a tasting and a guided tour of the more than 100 barrels aging in the cellar.  

Hunter Museum of American Art

Located on the south end of the pedestrian-friendly Walnut Street Bridge, the Hunter Museum of American Art’s permanent collection includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, decorative arts, mixed media, and new media that represent the 1700s to the present day. A temporary exhibition until June 1, 2025, Rondell Crier’s Flights of Hope and Healing is a 37-foot mural that details histories and hopes for the community. 

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