Last updated: July 2, 2023

Thanks for stopping in and joining my blog tour of Guntersville’s City Harbor and Downtown District.

Guntersville was founded by John Gunter. Initially incorporated as “Gunter’s Landing” in 1848, and formally changed its name to Guntersville in 1854.

While our main reason for visiting Guntersville was to celebrate my mother-in-laws birthday, this winded up being a treat for us all! At only 40 miles from our home, this was the perfect day trip to explore the area and take a sunset dinner cruise. We were met with some gray clouds, wind and scattered thunderstorms with some off and on drizzle, but turns out this really worked in our favor as there was hardly anyone else out and we weren’t having to walk about in the scorching heat (it’s been in the high 90s here lately!). We were grateful for this “bad” weather!

Given Guntersville was chosen by Relocate America in their list of “The 100 Best Places to Live in America”, by Field and Stream listed as the “Number 9 Best Fishing Town in America”, and by Where To Retire as “one of the top places to retire”, there’s no wonder it’s so enjoyable to visit! Not only that, it also the home of Alabama’s largest lake which connects to the Tennessee River. It’s elevation is 594 feet and offers 890 miles of shoreline. At a water surface that stretches 68,000 acres, you don’t have to worry about being crowded… we saw maybe one other boat while we were out and the lake stretched as far as the eyes could see… it’s big!

City Harbor

City Harbor is quite the bougie marina. There’s one of my favorite brunch places, Another Broken Egg, a steak restaurant, a mexican eatery, a burger joint, live music, a sports bar, and pop up shops offering a variety of items, in a addition to a lovely store that sells items for your home. We enjoyed a small lunch at The Wake before heading out to explore the Downtown District.

Downtown District

If I’m being honest, I think there’s some things missing here. They need an ice cream shop, a place to buy cool Guntersville t-shirts and hats, and a place to buy food like hot pretzels with perhaps some fresh squeezed lemonade. We 100% would have stopped and bought this as it allows us to keep walking while enjoying a quick snack or refreshment. Most of the stores were thrift stores and antiques which is fine, but there just needed to be more variety. I just think there’s a lot of missed opportunity here. Regardless, we went in most stores and even though we didn’t buy anything, it was cool to walk through and get to know downtown Guntersville.

We ended the night perfectly with a dinner and sunset cruise which has this blog all to itself given the beautiful sunset we experienced!

As a side note, I’m so excited that our hometown will be building a dining and shopping experience similar to this over the next 24 months along the banks of the Tennessee River. It will only be ten minutes from our house so I can’t wait to take friends and family on local sunset cruises and go on sporadic dinner dates that overlook the Tennessee River with my sweet husband.

If you ever find yourself in Alabama, this would be an awesome place to visit… I hope you get to experience it one day!