Courtney Lee met her boyfriend, Connor McCoy, in 2020 through mutual friends. Their shared love of travel immediately sparked a connection.
LAKEWOOD, Ohio — You can’t spell influencer without “C-L-E.”
When Courtney Lee started her Instagram page, @TravelWithClee, showcasing Cleveland seemed destined for social media success.
“I think there’s so many great small towns in Northeast Ohio. It just feels like you can take a day trip and go 30 minutes away, and you’re in a different town,” Lee said.
Lee met her boyfriend, Connor McCoy, in 2020 through mutual friends. Their shared love of travel immediately sparked a connection.
“My first impression of her, obviously she’s beautiful,” McCoy said. “Second, we really hit it off when we started talking. When we ended up getting dinner, we had a great conversation the entire time, which was really important to me. I just really enjoyed our first date and was looking forward to the next one.”
It’s been 4.5 years together since that first date—and now, through their page, they share those dates with strangers on the internet.
“It’s just been kind of fun that people have been enjoying seeing our day-to-day,” Lee said. “We’re just like, ‘Oh, come on a date night with us,’ and people love watching it. It’s been cool to see, and it also helps those businesses as well, getting a bunch of traction.”
McCoy added, “We are already going and traveling, going to restaurants, going to the shops. So for me, I was like, yeah, I was all on board.”
As loved ones search for last-minute Valentine’s Day reservations and recommendations, look no further than their page for inspiration on where to dine and date.
“It’d be so nice if more people were to come here and enjoy it as much as we did,” McCoy said. “I think that’s somewhat happening with some of the people that follow us. They actually go and enjoy those towns, and sometimes they’ll do the same things we did, which is awesome.”
So, if you’re wondering—what are some of their favorite spots?
“I’ve always really enjoyed Chagrin Falls,” McCoy said. “As a kid, I had been to the downtown area, but I never really got to explore it as an adult. I really enjoyed it. We went to a couple of antique shops, bookstores and the restaurants are phenomenal.”
Lee agreed. “Yeah, I was also gonna say Chagrin Falls. It just gave me ‘Gilmore Girls’ vibes, like Stars Hollow, and I’m a big ‘Gilmore Girls’ fan. When we went there, I was like, ‘Wow.’ They even had the gazebo in the middle. People always say that about Medina, too. Maybe just because I’m a big ‘Gilmore Girls’ fan, small towns are where it’s at for me.”
Sharing their travels has brought the two closer—encouraging them to explore and venture out—while influencing others as well.
“I would just say, in general, it’s just been really fun getting to do all this content creation together and just finding new places,” Lee said. “We’ve said it from the beginning—it’s always been up our alley, finding new places and traveling to new places. Just spending days exploring Northeast Ohio towns we haven’t been to. I feel like the Instagram account has gotten us to see so many new places that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.”
