If you’ve followed along for awhile you’ve seen the changes from a less specific Coie’s Questions to Coie: Chattanooga Blogger. For everyone new around here, hi!!!!!!! I’m so glad you’re here, let me tell you how I ended up where I am in the least boring way possible.
Pre Chattanooga
When I first started out on my podcasting journey I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do besides knowing I wanted to talk to people and learn shit. In a very fun cool way, of course. Eventually my former cohost and I settled on a topic searching for the state with the coolest stereotype in America. (which will start again with season 2.5 I promise – no exact release date yet)
When the podcast first started in I lived in Austin, Tx. 10/10 DO NOT recommend. While I lived there my dad retired and moved to Tennessee. Not long after retiring he found out he had cancer (he’s now undetectable and doing much better in all aspects of life). I came to Chattanooga to take care of my dad and take him to drs appointments and stuff like any favorite kid would do. It doesn’t matter I’m the only kid, I’m still the favorite mmmk.
Moving to Chattanooga
The first few months in Chattanooga the only thing I really knew was how to get from my dads house to Erlanger and that the riverwalk was great for running to get rid of stress. I know, not exactly the most exciting things about Chattanooga but life isn’t always glamorous.
The more I spent time outside of the hospital I quickly learned why it’s call the scenic city. I spent a lot of time in Coolidge Park and at Ross’s Landing. I know I’ve mentioned a few of the places I lived before but the majority of my adult life has been next to the ocean. Ya girl loves the water so the Tennessee River is a gigantic plus on my list of reasons Chattanooga is the best city in America.
I continued to work on the podcast searching for the coolest state while paying very little attention to the website (that was supposed to be my former co-hosts job) and was about to launch a Youtube Channel when my cohost quickly and unexpectedly left the podcast.
Y’all, I would be lying if I said that didn’t devastate me. I was upset about losing my cohost and our friendship (completely separate matter that isn’t worth your time to explain but long story short he repeated patterns from the past that I no longer can allow in my life). Because of that I lost all motivation took a hiatus from the podcast and abandoned the YouTube channel.
Blogging about Chattanooga
After a few months more than I would like to admit, I decided I needed to start over. Travel vlogging and podcasting has always been my dream. I had learned a lot of lessons throughout the entire experience until this point, and I want nothing more than to share my love of travel with you.
One morning while staring at the back end of the website trying to figure out what the hell I could possibly talk about that you would care about I saw a post I had written about underrated cities. I could tell you that was the ah ha moment I needed and it all made sense from there. That would be a lie. However, it did kind of stick in the back of my mind and after talking to my hype squad (aka my parents and best friend) I knew sharing my love for Chattanooga was what I should be doing.
I completely redid the website – I’m still working on it so give me a little grace please. Made a blogging plan and started researching coffee shops for my first month in the Best of Chattanooga series.
I may not have been born and raised here, but the amount of love I have for this city makes up for that. It is my main goal to help locals and travelers alike (I hate the word tourist here’s why) fall in love with the Scenic City one blog post at a time.
Growing with Chattanooga
At the time of writing this I have been a focused on Chattanooga for about a month. I’m building content as quickly as I can while making sure its worth your time to read. In the meantime another Chattanooga Blogger you should be following is Amanda from Exploring Chatt. We have completely different styles and focuses but we both are bringing you the best the scenic city has to offer.
I mentioned before that Chattanooga is an underrated city and I do want to help the world see how amazing of a place it is as the tourism industry here grows. HOWEVER, one of the most important things to me is keeping it from being Austin 2.0 If you want Austin – go to Texas. I saw a keep Chattanooga weird sticker the other day and Y’all. We’re not doing that. Nope. Sorry. Chattanooga is amazing because of the history, the people, and the uniqueness. Don’t try and put another city here. Austin already exists. Nowhere else can be Chattanooga and that’s its super power.
What are you most excited to see on the blog?
