Where: Greenville, South Carolina
When: year-round
If you like: dining and drinks, urban escapes, music
Why you should go: In a city where buzzy restaurants and shops seem to emerge weekly, two institutions that helped accelerate that rocket-speed growth will be popping bottles to toast major milestones in 2025. Downtown Greenville’s landmark Westin Poinsett hotel, a Jazz Age brick beauty renovated in 2000, turns the big 1-0-0 in June, and Euphoria, a food-and-music-palooza known for drawing big names (including hometown hero Tyler Florence and Emeril and E.J. Lagasse) marks its twentieth fest from September 18 to 21. But about all that new: Highlights on the horizon this year include new music venues Trueline and Seratonic, along with the $170 million renovation of Bon Secours Wellness Arena, which hosts shows this year by the likes of Blake Shelton, Kelsea Ballerini, and Keith Urban.
Not that one needs a reason to visit the area, especially if you’ve booked a room (or a meal) at Hotel Hartness. Just twenty minutes from Main Street, the hotel makes handsome use of the family homeplace of local businessman and aviation enthusiast Thomas “Pat” Hartness. “We wanted the design to authentically incorporate our family history and draw on the culture and spirit of Greenville,” says his son, Sean Hartness, who grew up on the bucolic plot, a portion of which has been converted into the 180-acre Hartness Nature Preserve. The family also expanded the on-site working farm to grow more-sustainable produce, give a hundred egg-laying chickens room to roam, and maintain the pecan groves planted decades ago—all of which help feed the menus of the hotel’s striking dining options, the Patterson Kitchen + Bar and the Captain Bar.
G&G tip: Another Greenville essential celebrating an anniversary this year: Mice on Main, the 2000 high school senior project turned darling sculpture series and children’s book, marks twenty-five years of inspiring scavenger hunts along Main Street.
