Think you know South Carolina’s beaches better than a local? Many visitors don’t have a clue. Here’s a two truths and a lie game built around the Palmetto State’s coast. Each round below hands you three statements about a real South Carolina beach, two of them true and one of them a lie, and you…
Georgia’s mountain towns didn’t all reinvent themselves the way Helen did, rebuilt overnight from a sawmill town into a Bavarian village back in 1969. These are the Georgia tourist towns locals say have changed, some for the worse and a few for the better. Blue Ridge Blue Ridge sits about two hours north of Atlanta,…
Forty dollars buys a chairlift ride in Gatlinburg to a view that Great Smoky Mountains National Park hands out for free. Nobody mentions that part while you’re standing in line. Tennessee’s biggest tourist strips run on that exact gap, selling access to something the mountains, the music, or the crowd already give away for less….
Think every Blue Ridge town still feels like it did thirty years ago? Not lately. Damascus swells from about 788 residents to close to 20,000 hikers and gearheads every May, and parking downtown stays tight for days afterward. These are the Virginia mountain towns locals still call their own, and those they’ve all but handed…
North Carolina’s oldest town holds about 250 people. Most North Carolinians have never driven through it, even though Charlotte and Raleigh grew into skylines just a few hours away. These are the North Carolina small towns that still feel frozen in time, in the best way. 1. Blowing Rock Blowing Rock earns the top spot…
National Farmers Market Week starts today, August 2, and runs through August 8. It’s the one week Georgia officially tips its hat to a habit many locals already live by. These are the farmers markets Georgians build a Saturday around, and those they’ve given up on entirely. 1. Peachtree Road Farmers Market Every Saturday from…
A pontoon eases away from the dock in Big Sandy at seven in the morning, and the ramp behind it stays empty for the next hour. Ninety miles east, a line of trucks and empty trailers is already backed onto the road at a Norris Lake ramp. Same state, same holiday weekend, two very different…
Virginia has more coastline than most people give it credit for, and the best of it isn’t where the billboards point. Locals figured that out a long time ago. They send the crowds to the neon strip and the summer pony crush, then slip off to the creek towns and bay beaches where the sand…
Florida’s best day trips rarely come with a mouse-ear logo or a velvet rope. They come with a two-lane road, a spring, or a roadside curiosity nobody bothered to put on a billboard. Floridians figured this out decades ago. These are the day trips locals take once the summer crowds pile up everywhere else. 1….
Florida hogs the headlines for being a snowbird state. Arizona counters with backyard citrus ripening in January and a saguaro cactus protected by its own felony law. These are the surprises that catch snowbirds off guard during their first winter in Arizona. 1. Oranges Ripen in January Many retirees who’ve never been out West picture…
