Regular blogging forces you to think, and for me that's meant thinking hard about why people leave home to visit elsewhere.
For readers of a travel blog, are you here because you're looking for a place in North Carolina to vacation? Or do you just like to visit - tour, if you will - different towns or attractions in the state? There's a difference, and the question for me is which type of traveler is Nearly There trying to serve?
In large measure, my answer is tourists, although surely you'll find places to vacation if you follow this blog.
Before I proceed, a few definitions...totally subjective on my part.
Vacation, to me, is getting away. It's rest, recuperate, get in some recreation. You can go to the beach or camp on the side of a mountain, and never leave your vacation spot.
Tourism, on the other hand, has a purpose. It's to go to see. Or go to learn. Or go to experience. To me, touring usually is a day trip, or an overnight. Maybe a long weekend. But it's short-lived and focused. We've spent an overnight near Bath to give us a full day of exploring that old village. Greensboro is no vacation paradise, but we've driven there a few times, to spend the day at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park or to discover Bicentennial Greenway.
Sure, touring can be part of vacating. What's a week in Emerald Isle without a day trip to Beaufort or the occasional visit to Fort Macon?
So there's vacating and there's touring, and the twain can meet. But not necessarily so.
The usual focus for Nearly There will be tourism, but you'll find a dose of vacating, too.
Tweet
Showing posts with label carolina travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carolina travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Go fly a kite!
Talk about neighborly! The N.C. Depatment of Cultural Resources notes that March's stiff winds is a great time to fly a kite, and it has some safe places to enjoy the hobby (or an afternoon's diversion).
So it has designated Saturday, March 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. as "Let's Go Fly A Kite Day" at six state historic sites and two state museums.
With no electrical lines and lots of wide open spaces, the venues will open the grounds to all kite flyers.
The locations are:
Alamance Battleground, 5308 S. NC 62, Burlington, (336) 227-4785.
Governor Charles B. Aycock Birthplace, 264 Governor Aycock Road, Fremont, (919) 242-5581.
Bennett Place, 4409 Bennett Memorial Road, Durham, (919) 383-4345.
Duke Homestead, 2828 Duke Homestead Road, Durham, (919) 477-5498.
Horne Creek Historical Farm, 308 Horne Creek Farm Road, Pinnacle, (336) 325-2298.
Museum of the Cape Fear, 810 Arsenal Avenue, Fayetteville, (910) 486-1330.
N.C. Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, (919) 839-6262.
Town Creek Indian Mound, 509 Town Creek Mound Road, Mt. Gilead, (910) 439-6802.
What more can you ask for? Pack a lunch. It's cheap. Take the kids or the grandkids. Explore the site when you're finished with your skyward delights.
Tweet
So it has designated Saturday, March 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. as "Let's Go Fly A Kite Day" at six state historic sites and two state museums.
With no electrical lines and lots of wide open spaces, the venues will open the grounds to all kite flyers.
The locations are:
Alamance Battleground, 5308 S. NC 62, Burlington, (336) 227-4785.
Governor Charles B. Aycock Birthplace, 264 Governor Aycock Road, Fremont, (919) 242-5581.
Bennett Place, 4409 Bennett Memorial Road, Durham, (919) 383-4345.
Duke Homestead, 2828 Duke Homestead Road, Durham, (919) 477-5498.
Horne Creek Historical Farm, 308 Horne Creek Farm Road, Pinnacle, (336) 325-2298.
Museum of the Cape Fear, 810 Arsenal Avenue, Fayetteville, (910) 486-1330.
N.C. Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, (919) 839-6262.
Town Creek Indian Mound, 509 Town Creek Mound Road, Mt. Gilead, (910) 439-6802.
What more can you ask for? Pack a lunch. It's cheap. Take the kids or the grandkids. Explore the site when you're finished with your skyward delights.
Tweet
Friday, November 11, 2011
Local Leaf-Peeping
Leaf-peeping season is winding down in the upper elevations of Western Carolina. But there’s plenty of eye-popping color in the foothills and Piedmont regions.
Tell us the sections of roads in your county where the trees are putting on a brilliant show right now…with enough detail that interested travelers can easily find those areas.
Like U.S. Highway 501 in northern Durham County, beginning about two miles north of Latta Road until the Person County Line.
Or U.S. Highway 29 north of Reidsville.
Tweet
Tell us the sections of roads in your county where the trees are putting on a brilliant show right now…with enough detail that interested travelers can easily find those areas.
Like U.S. Highway 501 in northern Durham County, beginning about two miles north of Latta Road until the Person County Line.
Or U.S. Highway 29 north of Reidsville.
Tweet
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Travel for a Tree
You don't have to travel far to make a Christmas memory. Or maybe start a holiday tradition.
Pack a snack, bundle up the kids, and head out into the brisk air to cut down your family's Christmas tree.
North Carolina is a leader in Christmas tree production, and 10 times since 1966, when the tradition began, a North Carolina tree has graced the White House. The mountainous western counties lead the state, but several cut-your-own Christmas tree farms dot the Piedmont.
In the center of the state, Boyce Farms at 2813 Mount Vernon Church Road, Raleigh, offers white pine and Leyland cypress varieties. Mistletoe Meadows Christmas Trees (formerly Pop-N-Son Christmas Tree Farm), is at 2518 Benson Road, Garner. Travel to Apex to find Jordan Lake Christmas Tree Farm at 2170 Martha's Chapel Road.
Two websites that provide lists of local cut-your-own farms are NC Christmas Trees and Pick Your Own Christmas Tree
Tweet
Pack a snack, bundle up the kids, and head out into the brisk air to cut down your family's Christmas tree.
North Carolina is a leader in Christmas tree production, and 10 times since 1966, when the tradition began, a North Carolina tree has graced the White House. The mountainous western counties lead the state, but several cut-your-own Christmas tree farms dot the Piedmont.
In the center of the state, Boyce Farms at 2813 Mount Vernon Church Road, Raleigh, offers white pine and Leyland cypress varieties. Mistletoe Meadows Christmas Trees (formerly Pop-N-Son Christmas Tree Farm), is at 2518 Benson Road, Garner. Travel to Apex to find Jordan Lake Christmas Tree Farm at 2170 Martha's Chapel Road.
Two websites that provide lists of local cut-your-own farms are NC Christmas Trees and Pick Your Own Christmas Tree
Tweet
Deal for First Responders, Vets
If you’re former military or a first responder (police officer, firefighter, EMT, paramedic or ambulance personnel) and have been thinking about a visit to Greensboro, go on Veteran’s Day. You can get a special admission rate to the Natural Science Center.
"Lifesaver" employees will receive a special $6 group admission rate to visit the Natural Science Center and Animal Discovery, and a $14 group admission rate to visit Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition (admission also includes entry to the Museum and Animal Discovery).
To obtain the discount, "lifesavers" have to show valid ID as proof of vocation.
The offer is to people in the Triad, but Marketing Director Steffany Reeve says anyone in North Carolina who produces valid ID will be given the special pricing.
The Natural Science Center bills itself as three attractions in one destination: a hands-on science Museum (featuring a Dinosaur Gallery, Herpetarium and touch labs); Animal Discovery Zoological Park (featuring tigers, gibbons, wallabies, meerkats, lemurs and many other unique animals); and a state-of-the-art OmniSphere Dome Theater.
Veterans Day is Nov. 11. The Center is at 4301 Lawndale Drive. Call 336-288-3769 or visit www.natsci.org for details.
Tweet
"Lifesaver" employees will receive a special $6 group admission rate to visit the Natural Science Center and Animal Discovery, and a $14 group admission rate to visit Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition (admission also includes entry to the Museum and Animal Discovery).
To obtain the discount, "lifesavers" have to show valid ID as proof of vocation.
The offer is to people in the Triad, but Marketing Director Steffany Reeve says anyone in North Carolina who produces valid ID will be given the special pricing.
The Natural Science Center bills itself as three attractions in one destination: a hands-on science Museum (featuring a Dinosaur Gallery, Herpetarium and touch labs); Animal Discovery Zoological Park (featuring tigers, gibbons, wallabies, meerkats, lemurs and many other unique animals); and a state-of-the-art OmniSphere Dome Theater.
Veterans Day is Nov. 11. The Center is at 4301 Lawndale Drive. Call 336-288-3769 or visit www.natsci.org for details.
Tweet
Christmas Past at Tryon
Christmas today bears little resemblance to how our colonial forebears celebrated the holiday. The folks at Tryon Palace in New Bern has a children's event that gives preschoolers a taste -- literally -- of Christmas in the 1700s.
The Palace's "Tryon's Tales for Tots: Twelve Days of Christmas" is for youngsters aged 3 to 5. Set for 10 a.m. on Dec. 14, parents can accompany their children on a visit to the John W. Stanly House on the Palace complex, where tots will learn how the Stanly family celebrated Christmas.
That includes playing a popular game of the season and decorating miniature, edible Twelfth Night cakes. Admission is $6 per child. Adults are free with regular admission.
A state historic site, Tryon Palace is the reconstructed home of King George's royal governor to the colony of North Carolina. The handsome home and administrative building was planned and built by Royal Gov. William Tryon. After the American war for independence, Tryon Palace was the site of the first sessions of the North Carolina state legislature and housed the state governors until 1794.
It burned down in 1798 but it was rebuilt in the 1950s and is one of the state's most popular tourist attractions.
New Bern is about 125 miles from Raleigh and 250 miles from Charlotte. It's a straightforward trip from most locations by taking Interstate 40 to U.S. 70 East
Tweet
Starting Out
There aren't many things I get really excited about. But my adreneline positively pumps whenever I think about a trip that we have planned. And we just LOVE to travel.
I'm a husband, father of one, granddad of 2 (soon to be 3) and a former newspaper journalist, and our little family always has put travel high on our priority list. Mostly it was to relax and to learn. We love visiting historic places, and when our daughter was young, we'd drive to New Bern for the day to tour Tryon Palace or to Greensboro to enjoy the Guilford Courthouse battle re-enactment or carve out several hours during a week at the coast to wander Fort Macon.
Sure, we've enjoyed Cape Canaveral and Chicago and Williamsburg, Va. But my wife and I really enjoy traveling the Carolinas. My wife is a North Carolina native, but I grew up in Philadelphia. Our beach was the "shore" at Atlantic City or Cape May, which are fine. But they're not North Carolina.
Emerald Isle enchanted me from the first time I saw its sea. We honeymooned on the Outer Banks. Our mothers both climbed to the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse alongside our teenage daughter during an extended family trip several years ago. One of my favorite memories is several days with my college-aged daughter in Hilton Head. We ate the best Greek food in the world at the Greek Festival in Charleston. My wife and I spent a night in a castle in the North Carolina mountains, and experienced total darkness in the heart of Linville Caverns.
We made a decision as a young couple to set aside money each year to travel, and it was one of the best decisions we ever made.
We tend to take short trips, and we're frugal travelers -- mainly because we traveled on a journalist's pay. So that will be the focus of my blog. It will be about travel, traveling in and around the Carolinas, and traveling so as not to break your bank.
I hope you visit Nearly There often. Please send comments and suggestions for posts.
And I hope Nearly There energizes you to get there often...wherever "there" is for you and yours.
Here's a photo from a trip we took to the N.C. coast around New Year's 2009.
Tweet
I'm a husband, father of one, granddad of 2 (soon to be 3) and a former newspaper journalist, and our little family always has put travel high on our priority list. Mostly it was to relax and to learn. We love visiting historic places, and when our daughter was young, we'd drive to New Bern for the day to tour Tryon Palace or to Greensboro to enjoy the Guilford Courthouse battle re-enactment or carve out several hours during a week at the coast to wander Fort Macon.
Sure, we've enjoyed Cape Canaveral and Chicago and Williamsburg, Va. But my wife and I really enjoy traveling the Carolinas. My wife is a North Carolina native, but I grew up in Philadelphia. Our beach was the "shore" at Atlantic City or Cape May, which are fine. But they're not North Carolina.
Emerald Isle enchanted me from the first time I saw its sea. We honeymooned on the Outer Banks. Our mothers both climbed to the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse alongside our teenage daughter during an extended family trip several years ago. One of my favorite memories is several days with my college-aged daughter in Hilton Head. We ate the best Greek food in the world at the Greek Festival in Charleston. My wife and I spent a night in a castle in the North Carolina mountains, and experienced total darkness in the heart of Linville Caverns.
We made a decision as a young couple to set aside money each year to travel, and it was one of the best decisions we ever made.
We tend to take short trips, and we're frugal travelers -- mainly because we traveled on a journalist's pay. So that will be the focus of my blog. It will be about travel, traveling in and around the Carolinas, and traveling so as not to break your bank.
I hope you visit Nearly There often. Please send comments and suggestions for posts.
And I hope Nearly There energizes you to get there often...wherever "there" is for you and yours.
Here's a photo from a trip we took to the N.C. coast around New Year's 2009.
Tweet
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)