Mountains are beautiful. Blue Ridge Parkway for a picnic. Or if you go to Asheville - Biltmore House. NC Transportation Museum in Spencer if you are in to trains. Lots of old trains on display.
Barbecue in Lexington if you can.
Pork of course. Oh and sweet tea. Grits at a local place! Golf in Pinehurst. Wilmington - USS North Carolina tour. Pork Chop Sandwich at the Snappy Lunch in Mount Airy if you're in to Andy Griffith show. Old Salem if you're in the Winston Salem area.
Saying "the mountains" is too broad an area. If you want to hike, consider Cashiers or the Great Smokies National Park (the only national park in the Carolinas). I'd lean towards the park because you can see Cades Cove, an old mountain village. Plus plenty of wildlife. The national park charges no entry fee, and you'll find plenty of hotels in the general area, though they'll all be rather humble in status.
Grandfather Mountain is another fun place. The "mile high swinging bridge" is one of a kind, and the bears are fun.
You can find plenty of places in the NC mountains to go white water rafting.
And Biltmore House is a great place to visit. Do not go on July 4th -- it's always crowded on holidays and weekends. Definitely do the servants' quarters tour; I find it more interesting than the upstairs. They also have a winery on the grounds, so if you're into that kind of thing you can attend a tasting.
If you can only eat BBQ in one place, make it Lexington BBQ -- that's the name of the place, not a description. It's just off the interstate, and the driveway's a bit confusing. You might end up driving past it. It's worth the effort. We've driven more than an hour JUST to eat there. Don't go expecting fancy: It's kind of an old building that "evolved". You're going for the food. 2nd best BBQ in the Carolinas: Gary's BBQ in Kannapolis. Try the BBQ Salad with Thousand Island dressing.
Also, mid-state, look into the Hiddenite gem mine. It's not a big tourist attraction, but it's fun. You can mine for gems -- emeralds are the thing everyone hopes to find. You will get DIRTY, so bring along a change of clothes. It's cheap, and you're guaranteed to come home with a jarful of something.
The USS Wilmington is interesting. And it'll put you near Wrightsville or Carolina Beaches. Fort Fisher is an old Civil War fort, and there's an aquarium nearby.
Much farther north in NC, the Outer Banks are full of history. In the summer they put on an outdoor drama about the Lost Colony, which I like a great deal. Also you can see Kitty Hawk (which is why our license plates say First in Flight) and the Elizabethian Gardens.
. . . We live in Minnesota, which appears to be bigger than North and South Carolina together, so we are confident that this is do-able. So far the only requirement is the city we fly into has to be a city that Southwest services since I have tons of points to cover our flight. From what I can tell, this narrows down our arrival/departure to: Raleigh/Durham, Greenville/Spartanburg, and Charleston.
Does anyone know if it's possible to rent a car at an airport in one city and drop it off a week later at a different airport? We aren't sure if we have to fly in and out of the same airport when renting a car...
I have never been to Minesota, but I think you're underestimating the size of the two Carolinas. NC is a loooooong state; it'd take you an entire day to drive from the mountains to the Outer Banks. We have good roads and (except for Charlotte and the Raleigh/Triangle area at rush hour) our traffic isn't nearly what some states have; still, you're going to have to pick and choose.
Since you mentioned the mountains and Southern archetecture, I'd suggest that you hit the mountains and the Charleston area -- those two things are do-able. More really isn't. As you develop your plans, I suggest that you plan it out on Google maps. That'll give you a realistic idea of what you can drive/do in one week.
Yeah, Southwest Air limits your exposure to the Carolinas. It's US Air country here. One hint: The Charlotte airport is
always the most expensive.
Yes, you can rent a car in one place and return it to another location. IF your budget is big. You will pay, pay, pay for this option. But do check into the cost; it might be worth it to you.
I dont know anything about flying, but Charleston, SC and Myrtle Beach are my absolute 2 favorite cities! There is the Boone Hall Plantation right outside Charleston, the Provost Dungeon, Daughters of the Confederacy, Patriots Point, Dolphin Tours, Folly Beach. Some of our fav places to eat are Poogans Porch on Queen Street...its an old haunted house, with some of the best low country cuisine you will ever taste! Try the alligator bites, they are delish! For BBQ, we always go to Sticky Fingers. The original Sticky Fingers is in Mount Pleasant, close to Patriots Point (near Charleston), but we always go to the one in Myrtle Beach near the mall. DH loves Bubba Gumps also. In Myrtle Beach, we love just relaxing on the beach, but we also shop some at Broadway at the Beach, and Barefoot Landing. Our favorite pizza place in MB is Pizza Ala Roma on 4th Street on HWY 17. Its true authentic Italian food....oh so good!! There is so much to do in MB, you will love it! Have a great trip, wherever you end up!
If you want to see Southern architecture, Charleston is a great choice. Savannah is also a great choice. Charleston offers a view of the city life PLUS the plantations, which are only 20-30 minutes outside the city, whereas Savannah is primarily a city-dwellers choice. Expect significant parking troubles in either of these old cities. If you go to Savannah, you must eat at Lady & Sons, Paula Deen's restaurant. In either city you'll practically trip over delicious food; it's everywhere.
If you could go back in history 200 years, you'd see that SC was made up of plantations, aristocratic planter families, and slaves. In contrast, NC was populated by poor farmers working their own land. Thus, SC is the place to see old plantations. The old, old farmhouses in NC didn't stand the test of time.
I agree with visiting Boone Plantation in Charleston. It's a fascinating view of the Civil war era plantation, and it's unique in that a few slave houses are still intact. You see, Boone plantation made its money from both crops
and brickmaking. Thus, you'll see more brickwork (fence, slave quarters) than you would on most plantations, and -- as a result -- more has lasted into this century. It's also the place where the mini-series The North and The South was filmed, and you'll recognize the long, live-oak lined drive as the approach to Tara in the film Gone with the Wind.
Charleston is also a great place for the grits that someone else mentioned previously. Shrimp and Grits was a fashionable dish maybe a decade ago, but outside of Charleston and Savannah I haven't seen it on a menu in a long time. I'd skip both Sticky Fingers and Bubba Gump's Shrimp; those are both chains. In Charleston you can do much better.
If you want to see a poor man's homestead, the place I'd recommend in NC is Morrow Mountain State Park. A doctor and his family lived there around the civil war. You can see his rather modest house, the small house he built for his spinster daughters, and the greenhouse where he raised herbs for his medicines. The park is also very nice. Theory is that Morrow Mountain is the oldest mountain in North America; it's not large, but scientists say it's been worn down over time.
If you want to see Inidan relics, you can see a very old Indian burial ground -- just called Town Creek Indian Mound -- in Troy, NC. But it's close to nothing else. The NC mountain town of Cherokee is a tourist trap with lots of gambling.
Myrtle is a tourist trap. We call it "dirty Myrtle" for a reason
I always hear it called the Redneck Riviera. Its one redeeming feature is that it is cheap, cheap, cheap. If you get outside Myrtle, either to the North or the South, you can find nice beaches. Also, Myrtle is no place to go for July 4th. The crowds will be unbelievable.
Ok we are meeting this morning to start the planning! My fear is I've got too much on my list now! Maybe someone can help me narrow this down... here's what I have so far that I want to do (and I haven't even seen her list yet! LOL)
1. Asheville - I mostly want to go here for Biltmore Estates. Is it worth taking the time for this if we are also going to Boone Hall Plantation? And is there anything else in Asheville that we just can't miss?
2. Blowing Rock - this looks so beautiful and I would love to go here - if time allows!!
2a. Near Blowing Rock - Mystery Hill and Grandfather Mountain - are these worth the time? Could we do these and Blowing Rock all in one day?
3. Charleston - well, I've got a HUGE list (thanks to you guys) of things that sound like fun here, including Boone Hall Plantation!
4. Outer Banks - I don't know much about this area but you guys do have me intrigued! Then again, I could get my beach fix at Folly Beach near Charleston and we could cut down on traveling, yes?
5. Fireworks on a beach - if we travel Saturday to Saturday (I am only assuming we will but I'm not sure), how could we plan our itinerary so that we are on a beach mid-week? Would that create too much travel and too little "tourist time?" Perhaps We should be in Charleston and go to Folly Beach? Do they have fireworks there?
Thanks again for all the help! I love you guys!!
Biltmore House and Boone Plantation have very little in common. If architecture is a big interest, you will not find them repetative in the least.
The house that stands on Boone Plantation is actually the third that has stood in that spot, but you'll get history of the Southern planters -- for example, the door is extra wide so that ladies in hoop skirts could fit through, and the front porch has no steps so that the fine folks could step straight from their carriage onto the porch. And at Boone you get the slave-history too. Biltmore is much younger -- it's from the railroad age; it was originally built with electric lights and servant's quarters. Also, Biltmore has a greater emphasis on the gardens, and -- as I said before -- it is also a winery. Personally, I would want to see both Biltmore and Boone.
Yes, you can do all those Blowing Rock items in one day. But it'll be a full day. No time for driving to your next destination.
I think you're going to have to lose the Outer Banks. It'll take you a solid day of driving to get there, then a solid day of driving back. And with everything else to do in the Carolinas, I wouldn't sacrafice two days out of my one week for the pickings at the Outer Banks.
I would be anywhere except the beach for July 4th. Crowds.
The outer banks is truly awesome - our son lives next to The Wright Memorial (Kitty Hawk) and the ocean is truly beautiful there. Also, the Smoky Mtns. National Park on the western end is gorgeous, so this state has a little of everything 
Have a great trip!! Oh, and Cape Hatteras is a nice lighthouse that you can go up in and the view is awesome 
