Trip Tips #1: Richmond, VA

I am starting my newest sub-group of the blog: trip tips! Basically, I just talk about trips I went on and tell you what I thought was cool so you can get some ideas for your next adventure (or just hear about mine).

This past weekend I went down to Richmond, Virginia with my mom for a quick weekend getaway. It was an eventful couple days filled with wading through the James River, trespassing on festival grounds, lots of good beer, and many many biscuits. So here we go:

The James River Pipeline Walkway

Lets start with wading through the James River and just to let you know: wading through the river was never part of the plan. Thanks to Atlas Obscura, I found out about the Pipeline Walkway which I have now decided is an absolute must for Richmond visitors. My mom and I found time to do the Pipeline Walkway twice during our short visit and loved it both times. The walkway is accessible on two sides, one from Brown Island and one from behind a wall (it was a confusing search at first but the walkway is on google maps so just know that you have to go around the wall).

Once you climb down the short ladder onto the walkway, the real fun begins. The walk brings you close to the river which lends to excellent wildlife sightings. We saw many birds including beautiful herons standing around looking intently into the water for fish. We saw lots of schools of fish, a groundhog (at least we think it was a groundhog), turtles, and a snake getting some sun on a rock. With this trail only a couple minutes walk from downtown Richmond, it was well worth the trip to see all sorts of cool animals enjoying the river.

Three quarters of the way through the walk (it only takes about 15 minutes to walk the whole thing), the walkway pictured above turns into a wider concrete path that you follow to reach Brown Island. Right before Brown Island, this walkway was flooded due to high tide so, my mom and I did the insensible but more adventurous thing and took our shoes off to wade through the James (don’t worry, we washed our feet well later).

The Dominion Energy Riverrock Festival

This then leads us to our festival grounds trespassing. Once on James Island, it’s a quick few steps until you’re back to civilization. Once we hit the road, we realized we were inside the area for the Riverrock Festival that we weren’t actually supposed to be in. We got out and went through the real entrance to the festival later that day.

It was a complete coincidence that the Riverrock festival happened at the same weekend my mom and I decided to stop by, but it was the best thing that could have occurred. The festival was full of outdoor nerds; bikers, runners, climbers, paddle boarders– there was an event for every outdoor interest. As a climber myself, my mom and I hung out near the bouldering competition to catch what we could of that. Luckily, next to the bouldering was the Sierra Nevada beer tent which did not disappoint.

My mom and I relaxed in the shade of the tent in the ENO chairs that were provided for our reclining pleasure with our Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPAs (one of my favorite beers of all time) in hand. The beer tent included fun beer can garden art (pictured above) and interesting talks about the history of companies like Yeti. All in all, the Riverrock festival was an excellent way to spend the afternoon, I highly recommend. As a bonus: the dog sighting at this event was top notch too.

Beer, Bookstores, and Biscuits

The rest of the too-quick weekend was filled with lots of beer, bookstores, and biscuits. I already touched a little on the beer but we also got the chance to stop by Canon & Draw Brewing Company. We had an excellent IPA and even considered getting a 6-pack for the road (we only decided against it because we were walking).

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As for biscuits, we stopped by Fancy Biscuit on our walk around town and it did not disappoint. I got the freshy fresh biscuit and was pleasantly happy and full until dinner. After Fancy Biscuit, we continued our walk to the eclectic bookstore: Chop Suey. I loved the vibe of this bookstore; it was both cozy and artsy and had a wonderful selection (The fun art and coziness are pictured above).

To sum it all up: go to Richmond! There’s no place quite like it for frolicking across pedestrian bridges, chowing down on biscuits and beer, and simply soaking up some Virginia vibes.