Travel Information for North Carolina Hotel Guests
If you are searching for an inn, hotel, motel or resort near a North Carolina attraction, amusement and theme parks, or close to shopping, cultural events, historic sites, museums and performing arts centers, or nearby zoos, a festival, a golf course, a North Carolina state park, this is where you will find it.
There are three distinct regions in NORTH CAROLINA - Mountains, Piedmont and Coast - and no matter what setting you choose, you'll find natural scenic beauty: Waterfall-carved gorges and gently rolling hills, lush forests and towering sand dunes, 4,000 square miles of inland water and 300 miles of Atlantic coastline. The activities and attractions available to North Carolina visitors are as diverse as its geography, from shopping to museum hopping, wine tasting trails to barbecue festivals, historic battlegrounds to minor league baseball games. Nestled between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains,
ASHEVILLE's downtown has more art deco architecture than any southeastern city other than Miami Beach; attractions include the 255-room Biltmore Estate which still contains its original collection of 50,000 furnishings, artwork and antiques, The Folk Art Center, and the Pack Place Education, Arts and Science Center, which houses the Asheville Art Museum, Colburn Earth Science Museum, The Health Adventure and the Diana Wortham Theatre; other attractions include The Thomas Wolfe House and The Grove Arcade Public Market, a great shopping and dining attraction. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a recreation-oriented scenic byway that connects the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina with the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. There are scenic excursions through mountain gorges on the Great Smoky Mountain Railway.
Visitors to CHAPEL HILL travel to the stars at the Morehead Planetarium (UNC) and to the past at the Ackland Art Museum.
CHARLOTTE is rich in museums and historical sites like the Historic Latta Plantation, the Charlotte Historic Trolley Museum in South End, and the 1800s at Historic Rosedale, Discovery Place, a science museum, the Mint Museum of Craft & Design, The Mint Museum of Art, and the Carolinas' premier water and theme park Paramount’s Carowinds Water and Theme Park. Chimney Rock Park visitors can ride the 26-story elevator to the top of this park for hundred mile views.
The NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway in CONCORD MILLS is home to the world's most realistic racing simulators; nearby is the indoor amusement park, Jeepers!
DURHAM is known as "The City of Medicine USA" because of its many medical, diet and fitness centers; it is home to 13 historic sites, many arts centers, and six science and nature centers; they include Bennett Place where the Civil War ended in 1865, the Duke Homestead State Historic Site and Tobacco Museum and Historic Stagville, the remnants of one of the largest plantations of the pre-Civil War South. It is also home to Research Triangle Park, one of the largest research parks in the world, Duke and North Carolina Central University.
With one of the country's largest military installations, Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, FAYETTEVILLE is a city rich in military tradition and cultural diversity; it has several museums including the 82nd Airborne Division War Memorial Museum, the JFK Special Warfare Museum, the JFK Hall of Heroes and the Sicily Drop Zone where visitors can see trained paratroopers in action; the Airborne and Special Operations Museum covers the history and adventures of airborne and special operations units.
The turn-of-the-century commercial, residential and industrial district of GREENSBORO complete with antique, art and other unique shops and restaurants has been revitalized to include many attractions. Its history can be traced through photographs at the Greensboro Historical Museum; the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park has more than 200 acres of historic ground and 28 monuments honoring the site of one of the most pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War; the early 19th-century Mendenhall Plantation includes many unique out-buildings, a museum and a false-bottom wagon used to transport runaway slaves; for the kids there is the hands-on museum, zoo and planetarium at the Natural Science Center of Greensboro and the Wet 'N Wild Emerald Pointe Water Park.
HARRISBURG visitors can see what stock car and NASCAR racing is all about at the Fast Track High Performance Driving School and at the Hendrick Motorsports Museum, a complex featuring all Hendrick race teams.
The HICKORY region is famous for its furniture production and the Catawba Valley Furniture Museum traces the roots of the furniture industry in Catawba Valley; the 1895 historic Bunker Hill Covered Bridge is one of only two covered bridges remaining in North Carolina; Murray’s Mill Historic Site has been restored. About 100 late 18th- and 19th-century buildings illustrate HILLSBOROUGH’s history and the Oconaluftee Indian Village & Unto These Hills is an authentic recreation of an 18th-Century Cherokee Indian Village.
The KANNAPOLIS Mill Village Tour of Homes celebrates Kannapolis' heritage as a mill village.
MANTEO attracts visitors and locals alike with the restored waterfront and prevalence of Elizabethan and Old World buildings that line the town's quiet streets, while across the harbor, the ROANOKE ISLAND Festival Park hosts dozens of cultural events and activities year-round.
At PORTSMOUTH a narrated Olde Towne Trolley Tour takes visitors past 18th and 19th century homes, Revolutionary and Civil War sites, the oldest operating naval hospital in America, as well as the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, which contains naval weaponry and artifacts from nine wars, spanning more than 225 years; the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum pays tribute to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard; the Children's Museum of Virginia offers hands-on exhibits, a planetarium and an antique toy and model train collection.
Many historical sites in North Carolina’s capital city RALEIGH like Historic Oakwood, a Victorian neighborhood with restored homes built between 1870 and 1912, take visitors back in time; another of these is the North Carolina State Capitol which was built between 1833 and 1840; with more than 30 historic and cultural sites, plus an array of year-round events and celebrations, Raleigh is rich in African American heritage – at the African American Cultural Complex and the North Carolina Museum of History the role of African Americans in North Carolina is portrayed in long-term exhibits.
Reed Gold Mine near LOCUST is the site of the first discovery of gold in the United States.
At SOUTHERN PINES visitors can view the site of a Revolutionary War skirmish, discover the beauty of an English garden, or explore Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site, an archaeologically restored site which brings to life the culture of the Muskogean Indians from more than 300 years ago; Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve has 571 acres of wildflowers, forest animals, streams and ponds, and hiking trails.
WILMINGTON was the last Atlantic port open to blockade runners during the Civil War; the Historic Wilmington Foundation offers special programs and theme tours of historic homes, buildings and architecture; on a Ghost Walk of Old Wilmington a costumed guide introduces visitors to the poor lost souls who still haunt the city.
Life on Mars can be found in WILSON at the new Mars Base Station at the Imagination Station museum in historic downtown; Wilson is famed for Vollis Simpson’s Whirligigs, large, living sculptures in the form of windmills.
WINSTON-SALEM has long been known as North Carolina's City of the Arts – home to the nation's first Arts Council, the renowned North Carolina School of the Arts, and the National Black Theatre Festival; visitors can tour the Arts District, a community of eclectic galleries and craft shops, visit the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), and Körner's Folly, an eccentric 1880s home built with seven different levels (no two doors or windows in a room are alike and the 20 fireplaces are of different designs).
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