Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC - 3

Part 3: Reasons 11 - 15

Moving toward the east, there are more great reasons to consider North Carolina’s abundant offerings for family fun when planning getaways and vacations.

11. Mountains to Sea Trail

From the very top of Clingman’s Dome near the Tennessee border to the sand dunes at Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the strand of the Outer Banks, North Carolina’s 925-mile long Mountains-to-Sea Trail offers an adventurous way to explore the state’s natural treasures and human wonders. This is an adventure a visitor can embrace in small chunks or in an extended all at once while experiencing the best of NC’s towns and cities, rural agritourism initiatives and natural preserves.

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Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC - 2

Part 2: Reasons 6 - 10

6. Ski Resorts and Summer Fun

North Carolina’s western mountains are home to a number of world-class ski resorts, most of whom offer summer fun as well. The chalets and cabins are as comfortable in summer as in winter, with easy access to Western North Carolina’s favorite recreational areas.


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January NC Concerts & Events

Cultural life in North Carolina is rich and very diverse, with something for everyone living in the state, visiting, or just passing through. Below is an overview of upcoming concert events - for the musically inclined - at our many excellent venues throughout the state.

Proudly presented first is the January schedule of events for our wonderful, world-class North Carolina symphony, based in Raleigh.

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Making Plans for New Year’s Eve

With Christmas just a week away, it’s not too late to start making plans for New Year’s in North Carolina.

In the Raleigh area you could get tickets for the North Carolina Symphony New Year’s Eve Extravaganza Package. To include a pre-concert cocktail party at 5 o.m. at the Sheraton Capital Center in downtown Raleigh, the 7:30 p.m. concert, and a post concert dinner and dancing fest back at the Sheraton offering a four-course dinner and big band music from Leon Jordan’s Continentals. There will of course be plenty of champagne at midnight too.

Music Director Grant Llewellyn hosts special guests mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy and the Red Clay ramblers’ mix of Irish and French folk tunes, classical favorites and bluegrass-rock fusions.

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North Carolina’s Traditional Music Trail

In the mountain hollows and valleys, along piedmont country roads the traditional music lover can find a variety of music styles performed just about any weekend by old-timers and new-timers along the Music Trail. From ever-popular bluegrass banjo-pickin’ and grinnin’ to fierce fiddling the devil himself can’t catch, from gospel singing to the good ol’ belly-up blues, traditional music in North Carolina still being traditional just about everywhere you look.

There are many outdoor festivals all summer and through the fall, but the music doesn’t stop when the weather gets cold. The Blue Ridge Music Trails website offers a searchable database of events from the southern mountain counties of North Carolina all the way up the blue ridge through Virginia identified by folklife fieldworkers in the region.

The styles of music and dance came to the region along with the settlers moving west to the mountains and beyond via the great Valley Road. It began with the Germans, followed by English, Scotch-Irish, French, Irish, and Welsh settlers and African American slaves. The fiddles came from Europe in the late 18th century, the banjos came from west Africa. The eclectic mix of people spawned a multicultural breed of musicians not shy of borrowing tunes and styles, and by the Civil War the musicians were learning from the rest of the south and sometimes from northern musicians too.

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25th Lake Eden Arts Festival

Black Mountain

The autumn Lake Eden Arts Festival at Camp Rockmont in Black Mountain is scheduled for October 19, 20 and 21 at the very height of fall leaf-looker season in the mountains. Marking its 25th festival, the lineup this year is spectacular.

LEAF has become a regular WNC institution with two festivals a year, spring and fall. There are numerous artists displaying their work, plenty of fun activities for children and adults, lots of live music day and night, and many gifted performers. The LEAF sponsors offer programs internationally and in inner cities here in the U.S. that match children with instruments and residency mentors, bringing some of the best from Guatamala, Rwanda, Panama and elsewhere to show off their talents during the festivals.

The setting is beautiful Lake Eden surrounded by mountains, and families can purchase day-tickets, weekend tickets and the “weekend-plus” passes that cover 3.5 days and 3 nights of overnight camping at any of several fine lakeside camping areas.

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