- 12 Colleges and Universities
- 7 Major Highways
- 14,000 species of plant and animal life
- World class hiking, biking and water sports
- 250 Pristine waterfalls in region, 7 Rivers,
- Thousands of years of culture
- Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- 110 miles of scenic Blue Ridge Parkway
- 88 miles of hiking along the Appalachian Trail
- Carl Sandburg, Thomas Wolfe, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, & F. Scott, Fitzgerald called WNC home
Only in Western North Carolina. You set out at first light, top down, spirits up. After a superb country breakfast – haute vittles – on the porch of a cliffside inn, you and your Boxster head for The Tail of The Dragon: 318 curves in 11 miles, with no cross traffic. After a morning’s play in the twisties, feeling as hot as your tires and brakes, you head for that swimming hole with water so clear that the mica-flecked bottom glints in the sun. You lunch on wild greens and local, smoked trout, working them off on a ridgeline hike with 100-mile views.
Our first settlers, the Cherokee, consider this region an Eden of sorts. It’s a well-founded viewpoint, given our mountains and rivers … temperate climate … lush flora and fauna – and the sheer joy of all you can do here. Camp a mile high, where hawks soar on thermals and sunsets pin you to your camp chair. Stretch your legs on the Appalachian Trail, which passes just miles from your door on its course up from Georgia to Maine. Drive America’s most-scenic road, the equally close Blue Ridge Parkway. Kayak in Class V and VI rapids, or move through our landscape by horse, mountain bike, or ascender. Fly-cast for brooks, browns, and rainbows. Expand your birding life list. Hunt minerals, or tour the studios of our world-renowned craft masters, who offer gems of another order. Revel in theatre, live music, and dance, all of which thrive here because beauty draws talent and those who support it. As you relate your enjoyment to those yet to visit, some may say: “It can’t be all that wonderful.” Au contraire. It not only can be. It is.
This does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy where prohibited by law.