A short drive from Hendersonville stands Jump Off Rock, a photogenic spot offering beautiful scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The origin of the name comes from a more than 300-year-old Native American legend that tells a tragic story of love and loss.

From the time Cherokee and Catawba roamed North Carolina's northern mountains, people have reported seeing strange lights at night in the Brown Mountains near Morganton. Sometimes they're pale, ghostly lights slowly moving along the trees, and sometimes they whirl and dart rapidly across the forest. The Brown Mountain Lights always appear in the woods, rise above the mountain then slowly disappear.

The Cherohala Skyway might be the only National Scenic Byway that resulted from a joke. In the 1950s, someone made a joke about the only roads between North Carolina and Tennessee being old wagon trails. That started an annual wagon trail ride, which gave rise to the idea for a highway that would run along the crest of the Unicoi Mountains from Robbinsville to Tellico, Tenn. After 40 years and at a cost of $100 million, the 43-mile Cherohala Skyway was finished.

Each fall, the side of Highway 64 near Cashiers in Jackson County becomes a location for one of the most unique leaf-looking experiences in the country – the Shadow of the Bear. This naturally occurring phenomenon makes an appearance for just 30 minutes on sunny days around 5:30 p.m. from mid-October through early November. It starts with a small dark shadow at the bottom of the valley and grows until it finally evolves into the bear.