9 Small Towns in North Carolina With Big Charm
North Carolina saves some of its best personality for its smallest towns. Small enough to cross on foot in an afternoon, New Bern still scatters dozens of painted bears around downtown and claims the birthplace of Pepsi. Bath has fewer than 300 residents and a 300-year head start as the oldest town in the state. In Sylva, a few blocks of storefronts were convincing enough to pass for a whole fictional town in an Oscar-winning film. These are little places with big charm, and the state has more of them than seems fair.
Highlands
Highlands is a small mountain town at about 4,100 feet, ringed by the Nantahala National Forest and a string of roadside waterfalls. Along US-64, drivers can pull up to Bridal Veil Falls and steer behind the water, while Dry Falls and Secret Falls lie a short walk off the highway. The town packs a busy summer calendar, headlined by the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival and the Bearshadow music weekend each fall.
Downtown, galleries and boutiques line Main Street, and the Old Edwards Inn and Spa marks the upscale end. The Bascom, a regional arts center, shows visual art a short walk from the shops.
Washington
Washington occupies the point where the Tar River widens into the Pamlico, in Beaufort County, and it was the first American town named for George Washington. The North Carolina Estuarium, on the water near Moss Landing Marina, explains the river ecosystem with hands-on exhibits. Goose Creek State Park and Washington Park add trails and shoreline a few minutes out.
Main Street carries the town's dining and its theater, the restored Turnage Theatre, which stages live performances. Local spots include Down on Main Street for American plates and Pitt Street Brewing, which pours pints on the Pamlico waterfront.
New Bern
New Bern was North Carolina's colonial capital, and its Swiss founders left a mark the town still plays up: dozens of decorated bear statues around downtown, a tribute to Bern, Switzerland. Tryon Palace, the reconstructed royal governor's residence, headlines the historic district alongside the North Carolina History Center. The town is also where Caleb Bradham mixed the first Pepsi in 1898, and a store on the original site sells it today.
Green space frames the town on several sides: Lawson Creek Park, the 30-acre New Bern Battlefield Park, and the edge of the Croatan National Forest. Day trips reach the coast, with Swansboro about 40 miles south and Atlantic Beach beyond it.
Blowing Rock
Blowing Rock pulls a steady tourist crowd to its perch along the Blue Ridge Parkway, high in the mountains near Grandfather Mountain. Downtown is walkable and small-scale, with shops like Kilwins for fudge and Windwood Antiques, and restaurants such as The Best Cellar. Summer brings Symphony by the Lake at Chetola, and winter brings the town's Winterfest.
Its name comes from the Blowing Rock itself, a cliff over the Johns River Gorge where the wind can push light objects back uphill. For overnight stays, the Chetola Resort and the Gideon Ridge Inn make up the upscale end.
Sylva
Sylva lines a mountain valley about 45 miles southwest of Asheville, with the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway close at hand. Its red-brick Jackson County Courthouse, set on a hill above Main Street at the top of a long staircase, is one of the most photographed buildings in the western part of the state. Downtown was the primary filming location for the Oscar-winning 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, doubling as a fictional Missouri town.
Mill Street and Main Street make up the town's small business district, including the red-brick offices of the Sylva Herald. The local beer scene is deep for a town this size, with Innovation Brewing and the Lazy Hiker among the taprooms, and the West Fork Trail in Pinnacle Park climbs to a ridgeline overlook above town.
Bath
Bath was chartered in 1705, which makes it the oldest town in North Carolina, and fewer than 300 people live there today. The pirate Blackbeard had a house in Bath around 1718 and was said to be a sometime neighbor of the colonial governor. St. Thomas Episcopal Church, built in 1734, is the oldest church still standing in the state.
The historic district lines the shore of Bath Creek, its preserved homes furnished with 18th-century pieces. The Bonner House and the Palmer-Marsh House are open for tours, with maps at the Bath Visitor Center.
Kitty Hawk
Kitty Hawk occupies the northern end of the Outer Banks, a quieter beach town than some of its neighbors. The Wright brothers ran their early glider tests on the dunes near here, though the Wright Brothers National Memorial itself is a few miles south, in Kill Devil Hills. Closer to town, the Kitty Hawk Fishing Pier reaches into the Atlantic and the Kitty Hawk Woods Reserve protects a maritime forest behind the beach.
South along the shore, Jockey's Ridge State Park has the tallest sand dunes on the East Coast, and Bodie Island Lighthouse and Coquina Beach line the seashore beyond. The Washington Baum Bridge crosses to Manteo, which makes it easy to pair Kitty Hawk with the towns nearby, including Duck to the north.
Lake Lure
Lake Lure wraps around the reservoir that gives it its name, at the foot of Chimney Rock State Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Boat tours cross the lake, and trails at Buffalo Creek Park and Chimney Rock climb to overlooks and to the 404-foot Hickory Nut Falls. The water is clear enough that the town leans on it for swimming and paddling in summer.
Film crews have long used the setting: the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing shot at the lake and a nearby resort, and parts of The Last of the Mohicans were filmed in the surrounding gorge in 1992. From the top of Chimney Rock, the whole lake and its ring of ridges spread out below.
Manteo
Manteo is the largest town on Roanoke Island, the site of England's first attempt to colonize North America and the mystery that came with it. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site preserves the ground where the Lost Colony vanished in the 1580s, a story the town has retold for generations. Nearby grows the Mother Vine, a scuppernong grapevine believed to be around 400 years old.
On the Manteo waterfront, Roanoke Island Festival Park has a full-scale replica of the Elizabeth II, one of the ships that carried the first English settlers. The Roanoke Island Maritime Museum and Island Farm, a restored 1850s farmstead, round out the island's history, and the fishing village of Wanchese lies about 5 miles south.
Small Towns That Punch Above Their Size
For places this small, they leave a big impression. Highlands packs a summer with chamber music and waterfall drives, Blowing Rock throws a winter festival most cities would envy, and Manteo's island is where the Lost Colony vanished more than four centuries ago. Kitty Hawk still has the wind that got the Wright brothers off the ground. Big charm has never needed a big town, and North Carolina has the small ones to prove it.
