Think you’ve seen the Blue Ridge because you crawled down Skyline Drive one Saturday? You haven’t. The best of Virginia’s high country hides at the far ends of I-81, past the exits everybody already knows. These are the Virginia mountain towns locals keep for themselves, and the crowded ones they’d tell you to skip. 1….
Anybody with a full tank of gas can drive across Texas. Doing it right is the part tourists get wrong. Ask a native Texan for directions, and they’ll steer you off the interstate before you finish the sentence. These are the Texas road trip stops locals swear by, and the famous names they’d tell you…
Think a churro tastes better because you paid seven bucks for it inside the gates? It doesn’t. Annual theme park passholders figured that out years ago, somewhere around their fortieth loop through Magic Kingdom. These are the snacks Orlando locals skip, and the snacks they still line up for. 1. Bottled Water Florida heat makes…
A family from Idaho circles a beach parking garage in Florida for the third time, windows down, tempers up. Two exits south, a Floridian is already unfolding a chair on empty sand. These are the crowded Florida beaches locals skip, and the ones they’ll drive hours to reach. 1. Clearwater Beach Clearwater Beach draws the…
Most visitors to California aim their rental cars at the same three ZIP codes. Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Santa Monica Pier draw the crowds and the parking tickets. Californians, on the other hand, pack a cooler and drive the other way. These are the California beach towns locals love that tourists drive right…
Where does a Florida shrimper eat on a day off? Not the chain with the giant neon crab on the roof. The answer sits down a crushed-shell road, past the bait shop, where the menu depends on what came off the boat that morning. These are the Florida seafood spots locals line up for, and…
Ask a South Carolinian for their favorite beach and watch them stall. They’ve got an answer. They just don’t want you to have it too, because the best stretches of Carolina sand rarely show up on the billboards along I-95. These are the South Carolina beach towns locals love, and those they’ve handed over to…
One Georgia town of a few hundred people can pull in more than a million visitors a year. You can smell the funnel cakes from the bridge and hear the crowd before you find a parking spot. That’s the North Georgia mountains in summer, where a handful of towns receive nearly all the attention. These…
A Florida park can be gorgeous and still land on a local’s “don’t bother” list. The water is clear, the beach is white, and the parking lot filled up two hours before you got out of bed. Floridians know which gates to avoid and which back roads pay off. These are the Florida state parks…
Ask a North Carolinian to drive straight through from the mountains to the coast and watch their face fall. “Straight through” means missing every good part. These are the roadside stops North Carolinians pull over for every summer. Snappy Lunch North Carolinians drive to Mount Airy for a sandwich they can’t get anywhere else. Snappy…
