North Carolina

Get back to nature among mist-shrouded peaks, shimmering waterfalls and lush forests in the great American wilderness.

The Outer Banks are fragile ribbons of sand tracing the coastline for more than 100 miles, separated from the mainland by sounds and waterways. From north to south, barrier islands Bodie (pronounced 'body'), Roanoke, Hatteras and Ocracoke, essentially large sandbars, are linked by bridges and ferries. The far-northern communities Corolla (kur-all-ah), Duck and Southern Shores are former duck-hunting grounds for the wealthy, and are quiet and upscale. Nearly contiguous Bodie Island towns Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head are developed and more populated, with fried-fish joints, drive-through beer shops, motels and sandals and sunblock stores. Roanoke Island, west of Bodie, offers Colonial history and the quaint waterfront town Manteo. Further south, Hatteras Island is a protected national seashore with tiny villages and a wild, windswept beauty. At Outer Banks' southern end, find old salts, shuck oysters and weave hammocks on Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry.

You won't find a single stoplight or billboard along the entire Blue Ridge Pkwy, which traverses the southern Appalachians from Virginia's Shenandoah National Park at Mile 0 to North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains National Park at Mile 469.

Commissioned by President Franklin D Roosevelt as a Great Depression–era public-works project, it's one of America's classic drives. North Carolina's piece of the parkway sweeps and swoops for 262 sinuous miles of sublime mountain vistas. The fall colors, at their finest in October, are out of this world.

The National Park Service runs campgrounds and visitor centers. Note that restrooms and gas stations are few and far between, and the speed limit never rises above 45mph. For more details about stops, visit www.blueridgeparkway.org.

Parkway highlights and campgrounds include the following, from the Virginia border south:

Cumberland Knob (Mile 217.5) NPS visitor center; easy walk to the knob.

Doughton Park (Mile 241.1) Trails and camping.

Blowing Rock (Mile 291.8) Small town named for a craggy, commercialized cliff that offers great views, occasional updrafts and a Native American love story.

Moses H Cone Memorial Park (Mile 294.1) A lovely old estate with carriage trails and a craft shop.

Julian Price Memorial Park (Mile 296.9) Camping.

Grandfather Mountain (Mile 305.1) Hugely popular for its mile-high pedestrian 'swinging bridge.' Also has a nature center and a small wildlife reserve.

Linville Falls (Mile 316.4) Short hiking trails to stunning falls; campsites.

Little Switzerland (Mile 334) Old-style mountain resort.

Mt Mitchell State Park (Mile 355.5) Highest peak east of the Mississippi (6684ft); hiking and camping.

Craggy Gardens (Mile 364) Hiking trails explode with rhododendron blossoms in summer.

Folk Art Center (Mile 382) High-end Appalachian crafts for sale.

Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center (Mile 384) Inspiring film, interactive map, trail information.

Mt Pisgah (Mile 408.8) Hiking, camping, restaurant, inn.

Graveyard Fields (Mile 418) Short hiking trails to waterfalls.

If ever a city was transformed by the craft-beer movement, it’s Asheville. A sleepy mountain city when its first brewery, Highland Brewing, opened in 1994, Asheville has become a true destination city for booze-bent hopheads. It now holds almost 30 breweries, catering to a population of around 90,000 locals; were it not for the half-million tourists who join them each year, that would be a lot of beer per person!

Inevitably, big-name national breweries have been flocking to Asheville too. Both New Belgium and Sierra Nevada, respectively from California and Colorado, have opened major brewing and taproom facilities here. Strolling from brewery to beerhouse in the pub-packed South Slope district – which, yes, slopes south from downtown – it’s easy to see why Asheville has been nicknamed Beer City.

If you’re ready to tackle the taps in Asheville, be sure to try a few of our favorite taprooms:

Burial Never mind its menacing logo; this friendly joint whips up some of Asheville’s finest and most experimental Belgian-leaning styles (farmhouse saisons, strong dubbels and tripels).

Funkatorium Wicked Weed's all-sour taproom is a temple of tart and funk.

Wedge Brewing Our favorite microbrewery ambience – a festive, come-one, come-all outdoor space, rife with dogs, kids on tricycles, swooning couples and outdoorsy types.

Wicked Weed A former gas station turned craft-brew wonderland – with 58 taps!

Ocracoke Village is a funky little community that moves at a slower pace. With the exception of the village, the National Park Service owns the island. The older residents still speak in the 17th-century British dialect known as 'Hoi Toide' (their pronunciation of 'high tide') and refer to non-islanders as 'dingbatters'. Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard the pirate, used to hide out in the area and was killed here in 1718. You can camp by Pony Pen, filled with the descendants of wild ponies abandoned by explorers hundreds of years ago, have a fish sandwich in a local pub, cycle around the village's narrow streets or nestle into holes in the sand dunes along 16 miles of coastline and catch some rays.

The cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill form a rough triangle in the central Piedmont region. Three top research universities – Duke, University of North Carolina and North Carolina State – are located here, as is the 7000-acre computer and biotech-office campus known as Research Triangle Park. Swarming with egghead computer programmers, bearded peace activists and hip young families, each town has its own unique personality, despite being only a few miles apart. In March, everyone – we mean everyone – goes crazy for college basketball.

A beyond-awesome hybrid of nature center and water park, this 1300-acre facility is home to the largest artificial white-water river in the world. You can paddle its rapids – which serve as training grounds for Olympic canoeists and kayakers – as part of a guided rafting trip, or enjoy a range of other adventure activities.

Wilmington is pretty darn fun, and it's worth carving out a day or two for a visit if you're driving the coast. This seaside charmer may not have the name recognition of Charleston and Savannah, but eastern North Carolina's largest city has historic neighborhoods, azalea-choked gardens and cute cafes aplenty. All that, plus reasonable hotel prices. At night the historic riverfront downtown becomes the playground for local college students, craft-beer enthusiasts, tourists and the occasional Hollywood type – there are so many movie studios here the town has earned the nickname 'Wilmywood.' You saw Dawson's Creek, right?