Places hopemch Wants to Go

An eerily abandoned stone tower is all that remains of a demolished dam on Cape Fear River.

This North Carolina store preserves a historic moment in America's movement for racial equality.

This scented city oasis was a labor of love.

Ruins of an American Civil War iron forge still survive today.

A mailbox that saved a nature reserve.

This nine-story building can be played like an instrument.

Trace the history of writing at this unusual North Carolina destination.

The enormous 250-room Vanderbilt mansion conceals hidden doors and secret passageways.

This research center for rare prosimians is studying how they sleep to help prolong human life.

A retired tobacco farmer's pet project turned into a sturdy miniature city.

One of the best places to see wild Colonial Spanish Mustangs in the United States.

This North Carolina museum is keeping the pinball craze alive, with a little Space Invaders on the side.

Gnarled canopies of pink and purple wildflowers arch over the trail to the summit.

A curious collection of oddities including a lock of Alexander Hamilton's hair and Harry Houdini's ouija board.

A cabin completely covered in coffee mugs, where visitors are welcome to leave one of their own—if they can find an empty nail.

The remains of the iconic train crash from the movie 'The Fugitive' can still be found rusting along the Great Smoky Railroad.

North Carolina's finest examples of Native American pictographs have survived for 5,000 years.

A historic covered bridge, only one of two remaining in North Carolina.

This bridge is haunted by the ghost of a distraught mother.

Who needs fancy modern water slides when this giant North Carolina rock works just as well?

This road in the Great Smoky Mountains was supposed to assuage a displaced community, but ended up a $52 million dead end.

A sculptor's dream castle turned fantastical ruin.

A former Oz-themed attraction that has fallen into disrepair, but still holds some of the original magic.

Mysterious ancient boulder carved with petroglyphs in the mountains of Western North Carolina.