Your Local Guide to Visiting Places | visitingplacesin.com

Browse more guides: United States travel | Americas destinations What North Carolina Is Best Known For Last updated: April 2026 · 12 min read Ask ten people what North Carolina is famous for and you'll get ten different answers, because the state runs from Atlantic barrier islands to 6,000-foot Appalachian peaks and the cultural mileage between those two ends is huge. I've road-tripped NC three times now , coast, mountains, and the full coast-to-mountain run , and the five things that come up every single time are: 1) the Outer Banks and Wright Brothers, where powered flight started on a sand dune in 1903; 2) the Blue Ridge Parkway and Asheville, with Biltmore Estate and 30-plus craft breweries downtown; 3) Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the country; 4) North Carolina barbecue, split between eastern vinegar-pepper whole-hog and western Lexington-style ketchup-tomato; and 5) college basketball plus the Research Triangle, anchored by D...

Browse more guides: United States travel | Americas destinations Best of Tennessee, USA: Nashville Music Row, Memphis Graceland, Great Smoky Mountains, Gatlinburg & Chattanooga - A 2026 First-Person Guide TL;DR I have been chasing American music history and Appalachian ridgelines for years, and Tennessee is the one US state that braids both into a single road trip. On my last visit in early 2026, I started at Nashville International Airport (BNA, GPS 36.1245 N, 86.6782 W), drove west to Memphis along Interstate 40 for the Graceland pilgrimage, then doubled back east to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, ending at Chattanooga on the Georgia border. This single arc covers about 1,050 kilometres of driving, two UNESCO-grade cultural anchors (Graceland's Music Highway and the Great Smoky Mountains International Biosphere Reserve, inscribed UNESCO 1983), and a price ladder that runs from a free national park entry to a 82 US dollar Graceland Mansion tour. In this 2026 gu...