These Small Towns in North Carolina Come Alive in Summer

By the first weekend of June, fiddle and banjo players camp in the Blue Ridge foothills at Mount Airy's Veterans Memorial Park, playing past midnight. A month later, a river town puts on the biggest Fourth of July celebration in North Carolina. Higher up, the mountain towns trade the Piedmont heat for cool mountain air. The seven small towns here fit a year's worth of fun into the weeks between June and August.

Beaufort

By June, charter boats line the boardwalk along Taylor's Creek, dolphins working the channel offshore. This Crystal Coast town lies along 85 miles of Atlantic shoreline.

In summer, day boats head out to the Rachel Carson Reserve, where wild horses graze the salt marsh. The Harkers Island ferry crosses to Cape Lookout National Seashore and its diamond-painted lighthouse. A few blocks inland, one headstone in the Old Burying Ground marks a young girl said to be buried in a rum keg.

Bath

Bath sees little traffic most of the year, but summer brings paddlers and day boaters to where Bath Creek meets the Pamlico River. Chartered in 1705, it is the oldest town in North Carolina and home to fewer than 250 people. The town lies about 50 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

Blackbeard owned a house here between voyages in the early 1700s. He was killed off Ocracoke in 1718, but summer visitors still come for the pirate story at the local museum. Ten minutes east, Goose Creek State Park opens a swimming beach and trails through cypress swamp. Paddlers put in on the Pamlico at the foot of Main Street.

Southport

Southport is a town of four thousand at the mouth of the Cape Fear, where the river meets the Atlantic. Each Fourth of July, the waterfront turns out for a parade and fireworks over the water. Hollywood found it long ago. Safe Haven, the 2013 Nicholas Sparks adaptation, filmed almost entirely here and even recreated the town's own Fourth of July parade for the screen.

Down at the harbor, summer is the working season, with shrimp boats heading out at first light. The Southport-Fort Fisher ferry crosses several times a day. The Marsh Walk boardwalk ends, as locals put it, in the middle of nowhere.

Mount Airy

The Mount Airy Bluegrass and Old-Time Fiddlers Convention has gathered players here since 1972, the high point of its summer. This is the real-life Mayberry, where Andy Griffith was born and raised.

In summer, Griffith fans come downtown. Floyd's City Barber Shop on Main Street still cuts hair in the spot where he got his as a kid. His boyhood home, a few minutes away, takes overnight guests now.

Blowing Rock

Blowing Rock has fewer than 1,500 year-round residents. In summer, Piedmont families climb the Blue Ridge Parkway here for cooler air. At nearly 4,000 feet, eight miles south of Boone, the Blue Ridge Mountains rise on every side.

Boutiques and restaurants line Main Street, open late on summer evenings. At Tweetsie Railroad, a Wild West theme park, families ride a coal-fired steam train all summer. Moses H. Cone Memorial Park was the summer estate a textile magnate built for the cool mountain air. Its carriage roads circle Bass Lake, the rhododendron blooming through June and July.

Banner Elk

In summer, Sugar Mountain reopens its summit lift just south of Banner Elk, carrying riders up for the view. In the middle of town, families walk the shaded loop around the Mill Pond, where trout and ducks gather.

A short drive away, Grandfather Mountain rises over the high country. The Mile High Swinging Bridge crosses an 80-foot chasm, with the mile-high mark labeled near the center of the span. It is America's highest suspension footbridge, the views stretching for miles. Trails spread out from the bridge for walks and climbs.

Bryson City

Bryson City has fewer than 1,500 residents on the Tuckasegee River, a gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains. Come summer, rafters ride eight miles of Class II and III rapids on the Nantahala River west of town, where the Nantahala Outdoor Center guides trips and lessons.

At Deep Creek, five minutes away inside the national park, tubers float the creek between Memorial Day and Labor Day. A two-mile loop passes three waterfalls. The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad leaves the downtown depot for scenic trips up the Nantahala Gorge and along Fontana Lake.

Summer Does the Heavy Lifting

In Bryson City, summer means rafts on the Nantahala and tubes on Deep Creek. Banner Elk sends hikers up Grandfather Mountain. Even Bath, quiet most of the year, sees its creek and the Goose Creek trails busy once the water warms. The pattern repeats across all seven towns. They wait out the slow months, then turn on the day summer arrives.