Your Asheville, NC tea (or craft beer) for restaurant reviews, local events, itineraries, and things to do. Map out nearby day trips and overnight getaways because Tom and I will most definitely drive 2 hours for a cascading waterfall, a cheesy-fun gimmick, an alpaca farm, a mushroom hike, a picnic with cows on a mountain bald, and a delicious burger by the river. Give me all the bookstores, wineries, and Blue Ridge Mountain wanderlust. 💙 Christine, your indie AVL travel writer since 2019.
🎃 Plan Your September & Haunted Halloween In Asheville
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Good Morning Reader, This past week, we lost a national treasure. In her honor, I hope you'll consider donating to one of Dolly Parton's amazing legacies, the Imagination Library, which gifts books to families. 📚 I've been quieter in our second New England home this August for healthcare and to visit family. I'll share a few of my travel favorites at the very end, including parts of Cape Cod, Salem, South Boston, and a CT winery I'd never been to but loved. You can also follow along with our New England adventures on The Uncorked Librarian's new YouTube channel. This newsletter is packed with Asheville and NC history, September fall festivals, and all of our fall guides. Please feel free to forward it to friends and family visiting WNC this September and October. 🎃 Celebrate All Things Halloween & Haunted AshevilleThe next few sections may contain affiliate links that earn me a commission at no additional cost to you. This helps fund Uncorked Asheville and are only products I truly recommend. If you appreciate history, ghost stories, Halloween, and dark tourism, this section is for you. Most Haunted Places In Asheville (Plus Ghost Tours & Halloween Activities)Tom and I will never forget being handed a rubber chicken and watching the "ghost of Zelda Fitzgerald" hump a bush on a Lazoom comedy ghost tour. Asheville has plenty of ghost stories, including the spirits at Biltmore Estate, the Grove Park Inn's Pink Lady, and the mysterious force that may turn off your car's engine at Helen's Bridge, which Tom and I visited specifically for this article. Not to mention, we searched for Zelda's small monument at the former Highland Hospital site. I'm currently reading Lee Smith's Guests on Earth, a fictionalized account of the fire in which Zelda perished.
Ghost Towns & Abandoned Sites Across The StateWhile you can no longer hike to the former Cessna plane crash—it was removed a few years ago, and having done it, felt a tad unsafe—visit "District 12" from The Hunger Games at Henry River Mill Village. Tom and I explored just a few of NC's abandoned places and ghost towns. I want to tell you that maybe one year, we'll walk down the yellow brick road... but probably not because I think The Wizard of Oz, with its flying monkey, is f'ing terrifying. Sorry, not sorry.
North Carolina Cryptids, Urban Legends, & FolkloreDid you know that North Carolina boasts its own "Nessie?!" We call ours "Normie," who might be a large fish or alligator... For fascinating NC folklore and cryptids, we also have Bigfoot (hence the festival fun), the Boojum—which is not just a beer, or is it?!—and a pretty ticked-off cat lady. Meet them below, and of course, I had to share pictures of our search for Nessie in Loch Ness, Scotland. Tom and I stayed in beautiful Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. The harrowing loop drive was filled with baby sheep and a few cute "hairy coos." It's one of my favorite areas we've been to.
📆 Mark Your Calendars: September 2026 Asheville Events & FestivalsSeptember is a busy month full of fall festivals:
🍂 Plan Your Fall In AshevilleAs mentioned in our last newsletter, all of Uncorked Asheville's fall guides have been updated for 2026. Start planning here: 🧙🏻 Returning From A New England SummerTW: Car Accident Our New England summer didn't quite go as planned. Driving home mid-weekday afternoon from Sandwich (The Cape) ended in my first-ever and terribly horrific car accident. Tom and I had visited Sandwich in honor of a book I read, and to see the Sandwich Glass Museum (meh) and the Heritage Museums & Gardens (spectacular, with an antique car museum). Our totaled-car report said our newly-owned Rogue had 138 damaged or destroyed parts with impact "all over." I was not at fault, and the landscaping truck that hit us also sliced into my back tire. Our car spun 360 degrees into both left and right guardrails, shooting us backwards into oncoming highway traffic. Thank gosh, everyone walked away, but we are both still reeling from the absolute trauma (and truly almost losing our lives). It felt like high-speed bumper cars in a pinball machine that somehow also moved in slow motion. I usually love driving, travel, and road trips, and it's going to be a process to get back to that. Just watching people run that new stop sign on Beaverdam makes me want to vomit—and they blow them all the time on Kimberly and at our grocery stores. With that said, a few places I loved while up North: Plymouth Visitor Center, The House of the Seven Gables, Worthington wine slushie, Museum of Bad Art, Heritage Museums & Gardens, and Mohegan Sun
Worthington Vineyards, Cape Cod shore, Plymouth gardens, Heritage Museums & Gardens, Museum of Bad Art, and Heritage Museums & Gardens
As Always, Say Thanks With A TipPhew, what a month. We are ready for our WNC fall, starting with apple picking and the first apple crisp of the season. As always, if you loved an article, piece of advice, or an email reply, say thanks with a tip here. Every dollar helps keep our guides and this newsletter alive. They take an ungoshly amount of work and time. I'm working on writing up our Hickory road trip and getting winter guides ready to go. Having said goodbye to Zooms and now Beau, our last of 5 sweet kitties, it's been very quiet and sad at home. I'm not sure how long I'll last before adopting another.
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Uncorked Asheville
Your Asheville, NC tea (or craft beer) for restaurant reviews, local events, itineraries, and things to do. Map out nearby day trips and overnight getaways because Tom and I will most definitely drive 2 hours for a cascading waterfall, a cheesy-fun gimmick, an alpaca farm, a mushroom hike, a picnic with cows on a mountain bald, and a delicious burger by the river. Give me all the bookstores, wineries, and Blue Ridge Mountain wanderlust. 💙 Christine, your indie AVL travel writer since 2019.