5 great North Carolina day trips within a two-hour drive of Raleigh or Durham
If summer begins with the scent of sunscreen and salt air, it ends with the smell of graphite and rubber erasers.
School is about to start back, but if you’re in a traveling state of mind, that just means a drop in hotel rates and a shorter line at the snow-cone stand.
Anyway, vacation doesn’t have to be a week-long commitment squeezed between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. It doesn’t even have to be a whole weekend.
Here are five road trips that require only two hours of travel or less each way from the Raleigh, Durham, Cary area.
An ancient lake and a fast burger
Destination: Lake Waccamaw, Elizabethtown, Benson
Travel time: About two hours each way
▪ Lake Waccamaw State Park in Columbus County sits on the shore of one of the state’s largest natural lakes and one of its most interesting; scientists still debate how it and other Carolina Bay lakes were formed thousands of years ago.
You can contemplate their theories — including that giant schools of fish made the shallow lakes by flapping their tails in unison over a spring — while looking at the exhibits in the visitor center or hiking along 10 miles of trails. The park also is a good spot for picnicking, fishing, birdwatching, primitive camping and paddling. It has two launches for kayaks and canoes.
▪ Dale’s Seafood, on the opposite side of the lake from the park, is a popular place for lunch or supper. While you’re here, you can visit the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum in its circa-1904 building.
You might enjoy making a couple of stops on the way to or from the lake, dipping into downtown Benson, which has three antique shops on Main Street plus two coffee shops and two bakeries.
▪ Your route from the Triangle to Lake Waccamaw will likely take you so close to Melvin’s Hamburgers and Hot Dogs on Broad Street in Elizabethtown it’d be crazy not to stop. If nothing else, step inside to watch the beautiful human machinery of the Melvin’s staff filling orders. No automaker’s assembly line is smoother.
A walkable river city with gators and great food
Destination: Wilmington
Travel time: About two hours each way
Much more than just a spot on the map on the way to Wrightsville or Carolina Beach, Wilmington is a busy waterfront town with plenty to offer a day-tripper.
▪ Downtown is a good place to start. Leave the car in one of several municipal or privately owned parking decks or feed a meter on the street, and explore the shopping and dining in good walking shoes, to give you the best footing on trippy cobblestones. Bespoke Coffee is one of five coffee houses where you can rest and recaffeinate. Elijah’s, with outdoor tables overlooking the Cape Fear River, is good for lunch or dinner, and you can burn some of the crab-dip calories strolling the riverwalk.
Check out the rotating exhibits and activities at the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science, or tour the Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens (which has holding cells in the basement because it was built on the footprint of the circa-1744 city jail).
You could spend a day just perusing the vintage and antiques shops in Wilmington, such as the Vintage Marketplace on Oleander Drive and Roses are Blue consignment on South Water Street.
▪ If you’re traveling with kids, the city’s Greenfield Lake Park is a special oasis, with a skate park, boat rentals and a shaded 5-mile trail for hiking and biking that circles the lake. Look for egrets on the lake but don’t linger so long on the shore that you become a temptation to the alligators. The park’s 1,200-seat Hugh Morton Amphitheater hosts concerts through October.
A mountain getaway, farm food and live music
Destination: Hillsborough, Mebane, Saxapahaw
Travel time: A little over two hours total
▪ The gates to Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area in Hillsborough open at 8 a.m., and on an August day when the humidity and the temperature are both in the 90s, that’s a good time to set out on the 2.2-mile mountain loop trail with a couple of bottles of water and a snack. Unless you spot a rare brown elfin butterfly that lives in the park, the highlight of the trail will be the overlook near the top of the “mountain.”
▪ Since it’s an easy hike you may still have the energy to take a lap around the Historic Occoneechee Speedway Trail, a relic of the state’s NASCAR history. Wear bug spray, and carry the can in case you need to swat the mosquitoes with it.
▪ While in town, tour historic Ayr Mount if it’s open, or just walk the expansive grounds for free. The house is open April through November with guided tours Thursdays through Saturdays, but you must buy tickets online in advance.
▪ Have a meal at the Village Diner, whose changing menu featuring local ingredients is more interesting than its name suggests.
▪ From there, hop over to downtown Mebane, grab a parking spot on the street or in one of the public lots, and peruse the antiques, art and boutique clothes for sale along Clay and Center streets and the connecting blocks. Crafted - The Art of the Taco, has expanded from Greensboro to Mebane, bringing its design-your-own menu.
▪ Next stop is Saxapahaw, a former cotton-mill village that has turned into a little food-and-music mecca on the banks of the Haw River, with a butcher, baker, a bar and a coffee maker. Through Sept. 2, the village hosts Saturdays in Saxapahaw, with a farmers market that runs from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with live music from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Order a meal ahead online from the Saxapahaw General Store and eat outside on your blanket while the band plays and the sun sets on the rolling Piedmont landscape.
Two rivers, one palace, 300 years of history
Destination: New Bern
Travel time: two hours each way
This town at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers flaunts its 300-year history, first as a Native American settlement and later as a Colonial capital. It was the site of a Civil War battle and an early African American community, but may be best known now as the birthplace of Pepsi Cola and as a retirement destination for out-of-staters.
▪ A day in New Bern should include a tour of the rebuilt Tryon Palace, a home so grand it required a special tax on resentful colonists to build it. Throughout the year, the palace and the adjacent North Carolina History Center schedule events and special hands-on activities, including ones for children and irreverent adults who can’t be trusted around precious artifacts.
▪ If you come to town on a Saturday, the New Bern Farmer’s Market operates year-round from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., with vendors offering produce, meats, handmade items and baked goods.
▪ Children love Kidsville Playground at Seth West Parrot Park, 1225 Pinetree Drive, with its giant fort. Or is it a castle?
▪ Catch a live performance by the RiverTowne Players in the 1805 Masonic Theater, and have a burrito as big as your head at Taco Loco, 2408 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., or an elegant, cosmopolitan meal from The Chelsea downtown.
▪ Downtown has a riverwalk, shops and bars, plus the Pepsi museum in the actual pharmacy building where Caleb Bradham invented the stuff in 1898. Its gift shop sells bumper stickers that admonish: Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Coke.
▪ If you want to get your feet wet in this river city, consider piloting a tiny vessel through protected waters from Stillwater Kayaks a few miles out of town.
Fresh-ground grits and a slow float downstream
Destination: The Old Mill of Guilford, the Dan River at Madison
Travel time: Just under two hours each way
This is full-immersion warm-weather day trip, as you have to get into the Dan River on a flotation device and at some point, you’re going to flip it over. Dan River Outfitters has a fun and accommodating staff that runs river trips through the end of September, then starts again next season.
▪ Start the day with a visit to the Old Mill of Guilford, built in 1767 to serve farmers in the Oak Ridge area north of Greensboro who needed their wheat and corn ground into flour or meal. Though it has converted from water power to electricity, it still uses the big creaky machinery to produce the items sold in the shop on the premises.
The grits and gingerbread mix are testaments to the power of blunt force. The mill, at 1340 N.C. Highway 68, Oak Ridge, is ruled over by a housecat named Millie who makes sure it’s open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, except some holidays.
▪ You can book trips down the Dan with one of several companies. Dan River Outfitters, housed in a long-derelict motel at 4890 Mineral Springs Road, Madison, has a trip that puts in at Madison River Park and starts off by bobbling over the shoals there. Make a reservation in advance and arrive 15 minutes early.
The company offers three kinds of tubes: connecting, premium and trackers. Connecting tubes allow groups to link together as they go downstream. Premiums are the round tubes that you steer by flapping your hands in the water, T-Rex style. Trackers come with a backrest and a paddle. The paddle is for steering, not acceleration; the point is to meander at nature’s pace enjoying her beauty.
You also want to pay for a float to hold the cooler you packed before arriving. Sun screen is a must, along with a bathing suit in a color that doesn’t show red clay. And it’s important to move to the right bank well ahead of the takeout point so you don’t float all the way to Virginia.
▪ After you rinse off at the outfitter’s headquarters, have a loaded pizza at Tiano’s or the Cancun shrimp at Rio Grande, both in Madison, and check out the shops downtown.
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