North Carolina places

Places to Go in North Carolina

19 towns and places, by region. Pick one on the map, or browse below.

Cities with a guide of their own

These North Carolina cities have their own site in the Dot Life Network, with neighborhoods, restaurants and events.

Asheville

Home of the Biltmore estate, billed as America's Largest Home.

City guide

Charlotte

The NASCAR Hall of Fame makes its home here.

City guide

Raleigh

Free general admission at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, home of the Dueling Dinosaurs.

City guide

Mountains

Blue Ridge, the Smokies and elevations above a mile

Beech Mountain

The Town of Beech Mountain lists its elevation as 5,506 feet and calls itself Eastern America's highest town, as does the Explore Boone tourism site. The ski resort community got its start in the late 1960s and became a town in May 1981.

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Blowing Rock

The Blowing Rock, an attraction Visit North Carolina calls the state's oldest, has drawn visitors to the edge of the High Country since 1933. A short walk leads to the rock ledge and its gorge views, an easy add-on to a Blue Ridge Parkway day.

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Boone

Boone sits at 3,333 feet in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and surrounding areas reach up to 5,500 feet. The elevation keeps average summer highs in the 70s and brings a late spring.

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Brevard

Brevard's white squirrels are not albinos but a white variant of the eastern gray squirrel, with dark eyes. In 1986 the Brevard City Council approved an ordinance establishing a sanctuary for squirrels, especially the white ones.

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Bryson City

Lakeview Drive, known as the Road to Nowhere, runs six miles into Great Smoky Mountains National Park and ends at the mouth of a tunnel. Walkers can go through the quarter-mile tunnel to connecting trails, and the Swain County chamber suggests bringing a flashlight.

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Cherokee

Cherokee is base camp for hiking in the Great Smokies and viewing the native elk herd. Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, which Visit Cherokee calls the oldest Native American cooperative in the country, has over 350 juried artisans, and "Unto These Hills" plays in the 2,100-seat Cherokee Mountainside Theatre.

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Hendersonville

Hendersonville hosts the North Carolina Apple Festival every Labor Day weekend, with local growers selling apples, fried apple pies, apple butter and cider at the street fair. Growing apples has been part of Henderson County's culture and heritage since the mid-1700s.

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Highlands

The Highlands Chamber of Commerce names three waterfalls you can walk behind: Bridal Veil Falls and the 75-foot Dry Falls, both in the Cullasaja River Gorge in the Nantahala National Forest, and Picklesimer Rockhouse Falls, about twenty minutes from town.

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Piedmont

The state's largest cities, plus golf in the Sandhills

Chapel Hill

For more than a decade, Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the hub for celestial navigation training for 62 members of NASA's Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.

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Durham

Deep in the Duke Forest, the Duke Lemur Center is a 100-acre complex founded in 1966 that is open to the public. Its tours include a behind-the-scenes VIP visit, and its conservation breeding program works to preserve vanishing species.

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Greensboro

On February 1, 1960, four freshmen from North Carolina A&T State University sat down at the lunch counter at Woolworth's in downtown Greensboro and asked to be served. They were refused, launching a sit-in movement that spread throughout North Carolina and the South.

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Pinehurst

The Pinehurst, Southern Pines and Aberdeen area calls itself the Home of American Golf. It says it has hosted more USGA championships than any other location in the United States, and it counts nearly 40 golf courses within a 15-mile radius.

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Winston-Salem

Vernon Rudolph founded Krispy Kreme in Winston-Salem in 1937 and sold his first donuts for 25 cents a dozen. Texas Pete hot sauce was developed here too, in the 1940s, by the Garner family in pots on the stove at home.

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Coast

300 miles of barrier island beaches and waterfront towns

Beaufort

Beaufort, North Carolina's third-oldest town, sits on Taylor's Creek, across from the Rachel Carson Reserve where wild horses graze the marsh. The free North Carolina Maritime Museum on Front Street displays artifacts from Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, lost in 1718 and found in Beaufort Inlet in 1996.

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Kure Beach

Kure Beach has a historic fort, an oceanfront park and, says the Wilmington and Beaches visitors bureau, the oldest fishing pier on the East Coast.

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Manteo

Manteo sits on the waterfront in the heart of Roanoke Island, with a boardwalk, a historic lighthouse and colorful gardens. The English colony here was abandoned sometime between 1587 and 1590, no survivors were found, and its fate remains a mystery.

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Nags Head

Nags Head sits at a wide point on the Outer Banks, bordered by Oregon Inlet, Roanoke Sound and Kill Devil Hills. Visitors come to the colossal dunes of Jockey's Ridge State Park to fly kites, go sandboarding and try hang gliding.

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New Bern

In New Bern in 1898, local pharmacist Caleb Bradham invented the original formula of what would become Pepsi-Cola. Visitors can taste a Pepsi at The Birthplace of Pepsi, a soda fountain shop, and learn about its inventor and the drink's early days.

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Wilmington

Wilmington's National Register Historic District covers more than 230 blocks of brick-lined streets, moss-draped live oaks and historic homes, with a Riverwalk along the water. Tours board the Battleship North Carolina just across the river, and three island beach towns are a short trip away.

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