A couple of weekends ago my husband and I went to Asheville, North Carolina with his two sisters and their husbands. Being a part of a group and exploring a new city was a lot of fun! Thankfully Tyler’s family likes to hike (and eat!), and like I mentioned in a past post I love hiking in other states, which is one of the reasons I was so excited to travel to North Carolina!
Unfortunately due an extremely rainy last full day in Asheville our hiking was cut short. I was all for going hiking in the rain (my husband said he would hike in the rain too, bless his heart), but there were literally flash flood warnings all throughout the day. But, despite the rain we all still found something fun to do.
Here are two of the hikes we went one and a back up plan activity in case it rains during your next (or first) trip to Asheville!
Hiking
First, we hiked Crabtree Falls Trail. This trail is along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The trail is a 3 mile loop which takes you down the side of a mountain, past this beautiful waterfall (pictured below), and then back up the mountain. I thought this trail was fairly easy. Hiking back up at the end of the hike did wear me out a little bit, but it wasn’t too much.
The trail is about an hour away from Asheville. Driving an hour for a three mile hike that doesn’t have a great view (even though the waterfall was pretty) didn’t seem worth it to me. I suggest including this hike if you go to the Blue Ridge Parkway, but consider adding other hikes in the same area to your trip along with this one.
The next hike we went on is called Looking Glass Rock Trail. The trail is in the Pisgah National Forest, and is about 45 minutes from Asheville. This hike ended up being about 6 miles out and back. I enjoyed the longer hike! The views along this trail are beautiful. I was not expecting the extreme overlook the trail led out to, and that made the trail even more fun!
A back up plan
We planned to go on an even longer hike our last full day in Asheville, but like I mentioned previously, that day was rainy. One lady said they hadn’t had rain for over a month (figures!). We would have been content to stay at our bed and breakfast and visit with everyone there and play some games, but the place did not have any games for us to play. Knowing it was our last day there, we still wanted to experience what Asheville had to offer, so Tyler’s sister did a little research and came across a place called Well Played Board Game Café.
This café is a little coffee shop/restaurant/bar. It has a library full of games for all ages. We each bought a $5 all-day pass. This pass let us play as many games as we wanted all-day long, even if we left the shop our passes would still be good as long as we came back in the same day.
Once we were seated I looked around and saw adult groups playing games, families playing games, and kids playing games. I saw that all ages seemed to be enjoying this place!
We played games for over 3 hours and ate some yummy desserts. I ended up having a lot of fun. We never would have gone here if it hadn’t rained!
If you would like more information about the café check out the Well Played Board Game Café website.
Final thoughts
My last post may have made it sound like all we did in Asheville is eat. While we did eat a lot we made sure to fit in some other fun stuff as well. Hopefully you’ve learned a few more places to try out in Asheville besides restaurants. When you go to Asheville make sure you experience activities that are unique to the city! What I liked about this trip is that the hikes helped us experience that part of the country, and the game shop let us experience the unique part of the town. Don’t miss out on these adventures when you visit Asheville!
Fits and Starts 