North Carolina Towns with Magical Main Streets

In this charming Blue Ridge Mountain community, the sidewalks on Main Street are wide, and so is the variety of fun and flavors. There’s always bumper-to-bumper traffic inside the Appalachian Pinball Museum, where you’ll flip for more than 80 vintage pinball and arcade games from the past seven decades. It’s free to come in and look at the machines’ artwork and innards, or you can play them all day for a flat fee. Down the street, the People’s Museum and Walk of Fame, part of Hands On! Children’s Museum, celebrates BIPOC history and culture in Henderson County.

Just a couple of miles away, experience the joy of tea at A Southern Cup, a boutique tearoom serving some of the finest loose-leaf varieties and infusions. If you seek resort-caliber lodging, farm-to-table dining and luxury spa services, you’re in luck: The Horse Shoe Farm on the outskirts of Hendersonville nails it. Stay in a home, cottage or loft that’s your size and style, sample local flavors at The Silo Cookhouse, and get a massage in a converted stable.

Lexington warrants more than a pit stop for its famous barbecue. Linger in longtime favorites, meet artisans with compelling backstories and take in nature’s bounty. Although Speedy’s Barbecue has a new home less than a mile from its decades-old location, that’s the only thing that has changed. The place is still all about ’cue. Prepare for extra-large portions of meat and crispy hush puppies. An apt candy-striped awning makes it easy to spy The Candy Factory, a nostalgic nexus of classic sweets, antiques and collectibles.

Frosting and filling choices lure carb cravers to Red Donut Shop for long johns, fruit fritters and more. It’s run by brothers whose family escaped war-torn Cambodia in the 1970s, moved to America and learned to make doughnuts.

Wake your senses at Elevated Wake Park, the area’s first full-size cable wakeboarding park. The design makes it fun for beginners and expert riders. A small water park lets kids climb, jump and slide on a playground of floating inflatables. Whether your adventures lead you on the water or over dry land, Rock Outdoors has the gear you need: boats and kayaks (including rentals); fishing tackle and bait; hiking and camping equipment; and apparel for active pursuits.

Three centuries’ worth of stories await in Beaufort, NC's third-oldest town, once a fishing village and now a jewel on the Crystal Coast. Notorious pirate Blackbeard’s ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, sank near here. View recovered artifacts — cannons, grenades, belt buckles and beads — at the NC Maritime Museum. (Please note: The museum is currently closed for construction.) Unearth more of Beaufort’s 300-year history at Old Burying Grounds, established in the early 1700s. Along with weathered tombstones, see graves marked by shells, bricks and wooden slabs.

Go on a reconnaissance mission to Fort Macon State Park, a restored pre-Civil War fort in nearby Atlantic Beach. Tour the fort and watch a cannon or musket demo. There’s a beach for swimming and strolling, plus trails that traverse a salt marsh and dunes. A window to 18th- and 19th-century NC opens up on guided tours through the homes and buildings of the Beaufort Historic Site. See where patriots, privateers, merchants and skilled tradespeople lived.

If you’re fishing for a place to spend the night, Beaufort Hotel offers boutique accommodations in a waterfront setting where a factory once processed menhaden — “the fish that built Beaufort.”