27 Best Sights in The North Carolina Mountains, North Carolina

Soaring to almost 6,000 feet, Grandfather Mountain is famous for its Mile-High Swinging Bridge, a 228-foot-long footbridge that sways over a 1,000-foot drop into the Linville Valley. There are 13 miles of hiking trails and some 100 picnic tables. Part of the area is a state park with free admission, and part is private land—including the swinging bridge, a museum, a small zoo, and picnic areas—with a $20 admission fee.

Bryson City's historic train station is the departure point for the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Diesel or steam locomotives take you on a 32-mile journey along the Tuckasegee River or a 44-mile trip passing through the Nantahala Gorge. Open-sided cars or standard coaches are ideal for picture-taking as the mountain scenery glides by. Trips are offered year-round, but with very limited schedules January to March. There's a café on board serving basic fare like pizza and hot dogs. Your ticket gives you free admission to the nearby Smoky Mountain Trains Museum and its room-size functional model train dioramas.   During the holiday season, the town booms as pajama-clad families arrive for Polar Express–themed rides. 

Connemara Farm is where the famed poet and biographer Carl Sandburg moved with his wife, Lillian, in 1945; he lived there until his death in 1967. Guided tours of their 1830s house—beautifully reconstructed in 2017—are given by National Park Service rangers. Sandburg's papers are still scattered on his desk as if he had just stepped away for a moment, and there are 11,000 of his books on shelves. Kids enjoy cavorting around the 264-acre farm, which still maintains descendants of the Sandburg family goats. There are also miles of trails.

This park—established in 1915 as North Carolina's first state park—includes the 6,684-foot Mt. Mitchell, the highest mountain peak east of the Rockies. At the 1,946-acre park you can drive nearly to the summit, where an observation tower provides panoramic views to as far as Clingmans Dome in the Smokies if clouds and haze aren't obscuring the horizon. The summit was named after Elisha Mitchell, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who died from a fall while trying to prove the mountain's true height.

Covering 12,000 years of history, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian is one of the country's best Native American museums. Computer-generated images, video projections, and sound effects help bring to life events in the history of the Cherokee. For example, you'll see children stop to play a butter-bean game while adults shiver along the snowy Trail of Tears. The museum has an art gallery, a gift shop, and an outdoor living exhibit of Cherokee life in the 15th century.

Getting to this waterfall is easy, as it's right beside the road in Pisgah National Forest, though parking is limited. Water cascades 60 feet into a clear pool, where you can wade or take a swim. There's a parking area and a sometimes slippery walkway down to the falls.

The Blowing Rock itself is a jagged boulder atop a cliff that overlooks the Johns River Gorge about 3,000 feet below. If you throw your hat over the sheer precipice, it may blow back to you, should the wind gods be playful. The story goes that a Cherokee man and a Chickasaw maiden fell in love. Torn between his tribe and his love, he jumped from the cliff, but she prayed to the Great Spirit, and he was blown safely back to her. The compact grounds at this worthwhile attraction include an observation tower, several overlooks, and the fascinating Blowing Rock Museum, which tells the century-old history of this area as a tourist destination and includes a display of locally mined gemstones.

About 15 miles from Waynesville in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area of the Pisgah National Forest, this 6,030-foot rise had long stood in relative anonymity. But with the success of Charles Frazier's bestselling novel Cold Mountain, people want to see the region that Inman and Ada, the book's Civil War–era protagonists, called home. For a view of the splendid mass, stop at any of a number of overlooks off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Try the Cold Mountain Overlook, just past mile marker 411.9, or the Wagon Road Gap parking area, at mile marker 412.2. You can climb the mountain, but be prepared—the 10-mile hike to the summit is strenuous as you ascend nearly 3,000 feet in elevation.

The home of the first forestry school in the United States is on 6,500 acres in the Pisgah National Forest. Started in 1898 by Carl Schenck, who came here to work for the Biltmore Estate, the school trained some 300 foresters. Today you can visit the school's original log buildings, a restored 1915 steam locomotive, 3 miles of interpretive trails, and a visitor center with many hands-on exhibits. It sits on a scenic byway that connects with the Blue Ridge Parkway near Mt. Pisgah.

At an elevation of 6,000 feet, Craggy Gardens has some of the Blue Ridge Parkway's most colorful displays of rhododendrons, usually blooming in June. You can also hike trails and picnic here. Craggy Pinnacle trail offers stunning 360-degree views.

West of Highlands via U.S. 64 toward Franklin, the Cullasaja Gorge (cul-lah-say-jah) is a 7½-mile gorge passing the Cullasaja River, Lake Sequoyah, and several waterfalls, including Bridal Veil Falls, Dry Falls (which has a path to walk behind the waterfall), Quarry Falls, and the 200-foot Cullasaja Falls. The gorge and falls are in the Nantahala National Forest.

Rocks around waterfalls are slippery, and trying to cross the top of the falls is dangerous.

Between Hendersonville and Brevard you'll find this 10,400-acre state forest with four major waterfalls, five lakes, and 80 miles of dirt roads to explore. It's ideal for biking, hiking, or horseback riding. Fishing and hunting are permitted in season.

This playhouse in a converted barn—the official State Theatre of North Carolina—presents a nine-month calendar of Broadway musicals, plays, tribute concerts, and a holiday variety show.

As the headquarters of the prestigious Southern Highland Craft Guild, the Folk Art Center includes shops and daily craft demonstrations from March to December. On the ground floor of Flat Top Manor, the summer home of a textile magnate, the Center hosts exceptional quilting, woodworking, and pottery shows. The home is within the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, which includes picnic sites and hiking and cross-country skiing trails.

One of the last remaining sections of old-growth forests in Appalachia has incredible 400-year-old yellow poplars that measure as large as 20 feet in circumference, along with huge hemlocks, oaks, and sycamores. Don't expect sequoias, but you're still likely to turn a corner on the trail and gasp with amazement at the scale of these behemoths. If you haven't seen a true virgin forest, you can only imagine what America must have looked like in the early days of settlement. A two-mile trail, moderately strenuous, takes you through wildflower- and moss-carpeted areas. During June, the parking lot is an excellent spot to see the light shows of the synchronous fireflies, which blink off and on in unison.

A half-mile hike winds through evergreens and rhododendrons to overlooks with views of cascades tumbling into Linville Gorge. There's a visitor center, a campground, and a picnic area.

The 5,721-foot Mt. Pisgah is one of the most easily recognized peaks around Asheville due to the television tower installed here in the 1950s. It has walking trails, a picnic area, and an amphitheater where nature programs are offered most evenings from June through October. There is an inn, a restaurant, and a small grocery a short distance away. Nearby Graveyard Fields is popular for blueberry picking in midsummer.

At the historically accurate Oconaluftee Indian Village, guides in traditional dress lead you through a 1760-era Cherokee village, while others demonstrate traditional skills such as weaving, pottery, canoe construction, and hunting techniques.

This fish hatchery operated by the state's Department of Wildlife Resources produces more than 400,000 brown, rainbow, and native brook trout each year for release in local streams. You can see the fish up close in more than 50 large tanks called raceways. There's also a visitor center with information about the life cycle of trout and an educational nature trail. The Davidson River, which runs by the hatchery, is popular for fly-fishing.

Dammed in 1928, this lake's name means "blue waters" in the Cherokee language. Cheoah Point Beach, in a cove on the north shore, is an attractive popular place to swim. Santeetlah has 76 miles of shoreline, with good fishing for crappie, bream, and lake trout, and is part of the Nantahala National Forest.

This natural rock waterslide, fueled by 11,000 gallons of mountain water every minute, deposits you into a clear cold pool. Wear tennis shoes and bring a towel. Lifeguards are on duty daily 10 to 6 from Memorial Day to Labor Day (and usually on the weekends in September and October). On warm summer days the parking area is often very crowded. No picnicking is allowed, but there are grounds nearby.

Located in the gold-domed Swain County Courthouse dating from 1908, this charming museum has displays on the history of settlers of this mountain area, including a one-room schoolhouse and a log cabin. It also serves as a visitor information center for both Bryson City, Swain County, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A 3-mile open-air ride aboard a 1917 coal-fired locomotive is the centerpiece of this Wild West theme park that also features a large petting zoo and over a dozen rides, including a classic—and surprisingly fast—Ferris wheel. Shows include cancan dancing and kid-oriented sing-alongs. Areas with names like Miner's Mountain and Country Fair are connected by a chairlift, walking paths, and a shuttle bus. Themed evening train rides are popular at Halloween and Christmas.

You don't have to walk the 1.2-mile round-trip trail to the summit of Waterrock Knob for a view—the vistas from the visitor center are also wonderful—but a trip to the top for sunrise or sunset can be stunning. Heading northeast from Cherokee on the Parkway, this is the first trail and notable summit. 

Near Highlands and Cashiers, Whiteside Mountain is one of the highest continuous cliffs in the East. The sheer cliffs of white granite rise up to 750 feet, overlooking the Chattooga River in the Nantahala National Forest. A 2-mile loop (moderate) takes you to the top of the cliffs, including a long section following the striking ridgeline. The cliffs are also popular with rock climbers. Peregrine falcons nest here, and the cliffs are closed to climbers during falcon mating season.

One of the longest—and smoothest—mountain coasters in the South, this exhilarating ride extends 3,160 feet and reaches 27 mph in one continuous drop. There's also a high ropes adventure course.