Cruise across Carolina with us. Keep up with our travels around the state right here.
News & Observer reporter Martha Quillin is traveling to out-of-the-way places in North Carolina and sharing where to go and what to do in those spots.
Keep up with her travels here. We’ll continue to update this story as she continues her journey throughout the summer.
Trip 1: Ocracoke, Cape Hatteras, Manteo
The journey: From the Triangle to Swan Quarter, onto the ferry to Ocracoke, then Hatteras Island, Manteo and back home.
Trip 2: Southern coast
The journey: From the Triangle to Elizabethtown, Lake Waccamaw and Holden Beach, using Holden as a launch pad to Sunset Beach, Ocean Isle and Oak Island. From there to Southport, where you catch a ferry to Fort Fisher and drive to Kure and Carolina beaches before going north to Topsail Island. Back home by way of Wilmington, because I forgot to stop there on the way north.
Trip 3: The Southern Piedmont
The journey: From the Triangle to Troutman, camping at Lake Norman State Park and using it as a base for trips to Hiddenite and sites in or near Statesville. Then to downtown Mooresville and on to Salisbury, camping at Dan Nicholas Park before heading home.
Trip 4: The Northern Piedmont
The main spots: A stretch of U.S. 64 from Ramseur to Siler City to Pittsboro that includes a U-pick farm, a winery and an historic bridge. Stops in Hillsborough, Mebane and Saxapahaw to hike Occoneechee Mountain, see a historic home, a ghostly racetrack and some fun shops, and to hear live music on a Saturday night. A day in Mount Airy to fully immerse in Mayberry culture. A night outside Stokesdale in a precise replica of the cabin where Henry David Thoreau lived on Walden Pond; and a different kind of immersion, floating down the Dan River.
Trip 5: The Northern Mountains
The main spots: Morganton, Celo/Toe River Valley, Mount Mitchell, Spruce Pine, Burnsville, Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway, West Jefferson, New River State Park.
In my arbitrary topographical sectioning of the state, I used Interstate 40 as the dividing line between the northern mountains, where I went on this leg, and the southern mountains, where I’ll finish up my tour.
Trip 6: The Southern Mountains
The main spots: Chimney Rock State Park; Asheville; the apple orchards outside Hendersonville; Bryson City, where we sleep in a “teepee” and board the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad for a steam excursion into the Nantahala Gorge; a zipline tour in Highlands; a back-country hike into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and Cherokee.
This story was originally published July 5, 2022 at 9:13 AM with the headline "Cruise across Carolina with us. Keep up with our travels around the state right here.."