Up the parkway, and something made with your hands
Asheville, North Carolina · 3 nights · May–October · up to 8
Asheville is a making town, and the best day here involves coming home with an object. Put the pottery class early in the trip so the piece has time to be fired and collected. The parkway is the other half — the balds above the city are open, treeless, and about twenty degrees cooler than downtown, which is a genuine surprise the first time. Check the season before you count on it.
The ending
A bald above the treeline where the ridgelines stack away in layers and go blue, then violet, then dark, in about the time it takes to walk back to the car.
That is Craggy Gardens, Blue Ridge Parkway MP 364. See how private it is and when it’s open, or build the rest of the trip around it.
Do
- Blue Ridge Parkway Hiking
- Pottery Class at Fired Up AVL
- River Arts District Studio Tour
- Biltmore Estate Tour & Wine Tasting
Eat
- Gan Shan Station
- Tupelo Honey
Stay
- The Foundry Hotel
- The Omni Grove Park Inn
Can we do this in winter?
Not this version. That stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway closes for the season, so the trip needs a different ending — we leave it out of the winter months rather than recommend it anyway.
Is the Biltmore worth a whole day?
Half of one. The estate grounds are the better part and the winery is at the far end of them.