VERY nice travel sweepstakes!!

There is a very nice prize to a drawing on North Carolina's official travel and tourism website, visitnc.com.

You can win high-class digs for a few nights in Asheville and Bryson City, $500 for expenses, a few meals, two tickets to Biltmore, and other goodies.

You have to enter by Jan. 31. Go to this link to get your name in the running.

Specifically, the "High Altitude: Travel Guide Sweepstakes" provides the winner with prizes that include:

• Two nights accommodations at The Grove Park Inn. It includes a spa day pass for two, signed centennial history book documenting 100 years since The Inn first opened, breakfast in the Blue Ridge Dining Room and name included in the 2013 centennial time capsule.
• Two nights at Great Smoky Mountains Cabin Rentals in Bryson City.
• Two adult tickets to Biltmore, billed as America’s Largest Home and including the estate's gardens, winery and Antler Hill Village.
• Scenic rail excursion for four on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.
• Two adult passes for a canopy tour at Navitat Canopy Adventures.
• Dinner for four at The Fryemont Inn.
• Whitewater rafting and wilderness survival training course for four at Nantahala Outdoor Center.
• A $500 Visa gift card.

Go for it!

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Biltmore at Christmas

Biltmore House was dazzling, filled with light against the inky blackness that actually had settled late on that December afternoon. A light snow had begun falling a few hours earlier.

Our little family was bundled up head to foot against the bitter mountain cold. Is Biltmore at Christmas worth the drive and the (steep) entrance fee? I have to say yes.

Certainly it's a grand family experience, especially if your children are older (ours was in college at the time). There's much to see and talk about during the tour and later in the hotel room or over dessert that evening. And years later.

But anyone within a few hundred miles from Asheville ought to make the trip, and do it during the holidays. Biltmore is a magnificent, unique palace, one that ought to be experienced if possible. Just a few of these mansions -- built by the nation's royalty of the time -- survive and are open to the public.

Biltmore is massive, on par with a medieval European castle. Its great rooms deserve the name. It had the most modern accommodations and gadgets. George Vanderbilt plunked his estate on the top of a mountain, for heavens sakes, with stupendous views of the surrounding Blue Ridge mountains.

Admission is as high as those mountains. During the holidays, adults pay $69 or $79 for the self-guided tour of the mansion. Children 10 to 16 cost half those prices. But save the money one year and take the family. There are tours of the estate's gardens and there's a winery. There are more food places on the estate grounds these days, which is convenient if you have younger children. There are nice coffee shops downtown Asheville for a change of pace. Asheville also has its share of non-Biltmore attractions.

It's a trip that will make a memory. In that way alone it's worth the money.

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Groupon Deals

Groupon, the e-mail discount coupon service, is offering a nice deal in North Carolina. You can save a bundle on a cabin in the Great Smoky Mountain town of Bryson City. The venue is Mountain Vista Log Cabins at 11 Hwy. 19 South. An example: four people, two nights, for $155. There's a deadline to book (about eight days from now). There's a limit to how many cabins will be rented at the discounted rates. Taxes and a $25 cleaning fee are additional. Here's the website


A separate deal offers a one-night stay for two adults and up to two youngsters at The Blake Hotel in Charlotte. It's a king or double room, and you can combine up to three nights. There's a deadline for this one, too (about eight days).
Here's the link

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Enter to Win the High Country

The deadline is Nov. 30 to enter a drawing for a trip to the North Carolina High Country, aka, the state’s northern mountains. The sweepstakes is through VisitNC.com, North Carolina’s official travel and tourism website.

It’s an impressive prize package, enough for a couple or a family. It includes:

Two-night stay at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Boone
Four tickets to Tweetsie Railroad Theme Park
Four tickets to Grandfather Mountain
$100 gift certificate to the Storie Street Grille
$25 gift certificate to the Mast General Store
$25 gift certificate to Tanger Shoppes on the Parkway
Plus a $500 Visa gift card to help get you here

Go here to enter.

And good luck!

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