Daniel and I will take any excuse to travel, and this past January (2020), our excuse was a babymoon for Baby Boy #2 coming in April! I’ve had Whitefish, Montana on my travel list for years. I’d heard it was a beautiful ski town in the mountains with good food, and while we don’t ski, I know that a ski town usually offers a cozy experience, especially with snow falling out the window. I was looking for the ultimate hygge time away. Also, in my experience, ski towns don’t always have such a great food scene, so I felt that this made Whitefish unique.
The Trip
After dropping off our 20-month-old with his Abuelo & Abuela in Fort Worth, we took a Thursday afternoon flight via Denver to Glacier Park International Airport (FCA). We had a long layover, but I enjoyed reading and people watching while Daniel got some work done. We arrived late at night, so we just stayed at a TownePlace Suites I booked with Marriott points for the first evening. We then stayed two nights at a bed and breakfast (see below), and then on Sunday night, we booked a free night at a Holiday Inn Express before our VERY early flight home on Monday morning. We did have a rental car for this trip, which I think is pretty necessary unless you are staying downtown with no plans to go driving in the mountains or nearby towns.
Bed & Breakfast
We stayed at The Hidden Moose Lodge two of our nights in Whitefish. It is a little bit out of the downtown Whitefish area, but it’s only about a five a minute drive into town. This place was magical! We booked the Big Sky Suite because of the fireplace, and it made for the most relaxing two days. The breakfast was one of the best parts. Hopefully they are serving the huckleberry pancakes when you visit (yum!). Also, all of the employees at the lodge were really friendly and kind, offering lots of local recommendations. I’ll let the photos below do the rest of the talking about this place.
Outside of the Lodge and the Common Area
Our Room & Patio
Day-by-Day
Day 1
Since we got in so late the night before, we hadn’t seen the area in the daylight yet. We woke up to this scene out our hotel window. I got Narnia vibes with that lamp post, those snow-covered trees, and the mountains in the distance!
The Farmhouse Inn & Kitchen
Our first meal in Whitefish was at the adorable Farmhouse Inn & Kitchen. It’s a tiny dining area, but the food is delicious with a focus on local ingredients and Czech pastries. We shared the Farmhouse Original Crepes and the Czech Breakfast Plate, and we each got a nice loose-leaf tea.
Folklore Coffee
Next we wanted coffee. We did tea with breakfast so we could have our morning cup of Joe at one of the many coffee shops that had been recommended to us. Folklore was a cute spot, offering pour overs and all the traditional espresso drinks. While we weren’t huge fans of our pour overs (just kind of “meh”), the shop is cute, and we enjoyed browsing the bookshelves and local information pamphlets they have.
Bookworks
There are many, many cute shops in downtown Whitefish to peek into, but we especially loved this bookshop. It has a good mix of current fiction, nonfiction, classics, local books, and gifts.
Fleur Bake Shop
For a fantastic selection of pastries made in-house and espresso-based coffees, head over to Fleur Bake Shop. The interior is beautiful with lots of space. We split a few pastries and had more coffee (decaf for me!) while we planned our trip out to Glacier National Park that afternoon.
Backslope Brewing
On our way out to Glacier National Park, we drove through nearby Columbia Falls and ate lunch at Backslope Brewing. It was an interesting place with a great menu and beer brewed in-house. The food served here is not just typical brewery food (although they did offer some of that) but also higher-quality dishes you might not expect. I had a comforting bowl of the “Ramen Not Ramen”, and Daniel had the Ginger Pork Bowl with a beer flight.
Glacier National Park
This trip was not meant to be an active trip, but we did want to see some of the nearby national park while we were there. We drove the 30 minutes north of Whitefish for a couple hour mountain drive around Lake MacDonald. The rest of the park was closed because of the snow, and the Lake MacDonald Lodge we had intended to go to was also closed. However, we still had a nice walk through the snow – we saw lots of beautiful trees, the lake, and some deer. We didn’t realize until pulling into the park that it costs $25 per car for entry, but I would say it was worth it even for our short time there. It’s such a beautiful area!
The Last Chair
That evening, after we checked into the bed and breakfast and freshened up, we walked over to the nearby restaurant called The Last Chair – one of the women at the lodge highly recommended it. We had to wait a surprisingly long time for dinner (about 45 minutes), so I would recommend a reservation. They describe themselves as “locally sourced American fare and some global fare in a rustic space”. Our meals were really good, and it was nice to just walk over from where we were staying. It felt like we were surrounded by locals having their dinner which is always a good sign.
Day 2
Breakfast at Hidden Moose Lodge
Our first morning at the lodge, we slept in a little bit and then made our way over to the dining area for our first Hidden Moose breakfast. We enjoyed the snowy scenes on our short walk over from our room.
This day was huckleberry pancake day, and I was blown away by how delicious these pancakes were. They don’t serve them every morning, so we were glad we got to have them one of our two mornings there. I could not turn down seconds when I was offered them! Baby was hungry!
Shopping on Central Avenue
After breakfast we headed back to downtown Whitefish for some window shopping along Central Avenue.
Wild Coffee Co.
We stopped for coffee at Wild Coffee Co., and this ended up being our favorite coffee spot of the trip. They serve really great Kalita Wave pour overs along with many other coffee drinks and local pastries. The people who work here know a lot about coffee, so it was fun to discuss our pour over options with them. We enjoyed the style and spaciousness of this shop – it was a great place to hang out so we stayed for a while. I read and Daniel did some work.
Jersey Boys Pizzeria
For lunch we shared a delicious NY-style pizza and Big Mountain Caesar Salad (best salad I’ve had in a while) at Jersey Boys Pizzeria. Really great lunch spot in Whitefish!
Reading by the Fire
We planned this day around being able to relax at the lodge in the afternoon. On the way back into our room we saw these really cool icicles and some deer playing in the snow!
We lit the fireplace in our room and did some more relaxing and reading.
Tupelo Grille
That night we had dinner at a restaurant that many had told us was the best in town. Tupelo Grille offers Southern cuisine with a Cajun focus. It was packed on a Saturday night, so we were glad we had a reservation.
Daniel started with a cocktail, and I had a mocktail.
For dinner, Daniel had the elk meatloaf, and I had the very untraditional chicken and dumplings. I wish chicken and dumplings could always be served this way! It had a creamy tomato sauce base that made the dish so flavorful and delicious.
Day 3
Bigfork & Echo Lake
The next day after breakfast and reluctantly checking out of the lodge, we set out on a morning road trip. We had been told that the drive around Echo Lake was beautiful. Since we didn’t have time to make the full drive around the lake, we decided to just drive out to Bigfork, a cute town right off the lake. It was pretty shut down on a Sunday, but we were able to enjoy walking around and visiting with a very friendly lady who worked at one of the open shops. She recommended we drive over to Echo Lake Cafe for lunch, so that’s what we did next.
Echo Lake Cafe
We drove a few minutes to the cafe, took some photos with the mountain backdrop, and ate second breakfast at Echo Lake Cafe. It was packed in the restaurant, so it’s obviously a favorite for the locals. My pancakes weren’t my favorite, but I think it’s because I was comparing to the Hidden Moose pancakes the morning before. Daniel enjoyed his food, and we both enjoyed the experience.
After lunch we took in some more gorgeous mountain views before heading back into Whitefish.
Daniel had booked me a prenatal massage, so he dropped me off there before going to check into our hotel and drop off our bags for the final evening. After my massage, we grabbed coffees once again at Wild Coffee. Then we did some more window shopping and found a neat pottery shop where grabbed an ornament for our travel Christmas ornament collection as well as a couple gifts to bring home.
Abruzzo Italian Kitchen
And then we decided to see if we could get into Abruzzo for dinner without a reservation. Since it was a Sunday night, there was plenty of seating available, but I’m told most Thursday through Saturday nights require reservations. Abruzzo is the sister restaurant of Tupelo Grille, and since we loved Tupelo so much, we didn’t want to miss out.
Excuse the poor lighting in this photo, but this is the cacio e pepe that I ordered. It was wonderful. All of their pastas are handmade in house. I truly believe there is nothing like a dish of handmade pasta. We didn’t stick around for long because we had a 5:30am flight booked the next day, but we enjoyed our short experience.
Central Avenue at Night
We took a final walk along Central Avenue and enjoyed all the Christmas decorations that were still up. Apparently they keep them up until the end of February. The combination of the food, mountains, Christmas cheer, and cute shops definitely make Whitefish my kind of place!
Early Flight Home
As I said, we had a 5:30am flight scheduled for Monday morning, so we set alarms for 3am. However, I woke up in the night to a text from Delta saying that our flight was delayed by four hours. So, we got to sleep in a little longer than planned. I was nervous the whole time that we needed to get to the airport in time for the original departure, but it ended up that we made the right decision by staying in bed.
Goodbye, Whitefish! You are beautiful!
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{Thanks for reading! Want to know a little more about me? I’m a CPA learning how to balance a career with motherhood and regular travel while planting roots at home in the Austin, TX area. When I’m not exploring my home city with my husband Daniel and baby boy Carson or cuddling with my chubby orange cat Banana, I’m probably either out on a playdate with my son or planning, packing for, traveling to, or daydreaming about our next adventure. After all, my travel mug collection is never complete. If you have wanderlust too, be sure to follow me on Instagram (and InstaStories!), Pinterest, and Facebook, or subscribe to my blog!}
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