The September 2020 Issue

This mountain town draws hikers and shoppers: When Main Street doubles as a hiking trail, you get the best of both worlds.

A tiny entrepreneur with a giant heart sells lemonade by the gallon to help babies in need.

For generations, one family has made sure that Rameses looks his best on game day — and has kept him safe from ram-nappers.

In the 1970s, a group of women came together to save a historic train depot. Decades later, it’s a museum reminding locals of how their town began.

This classic casserole is creamy, cheesy, and comes together in a snap.

Crazy for coconut? Try this cool and creamy dessert.

When you’re craving something old-school, nothing beats a simple sloppy Joe.

Stuff the season’s last ripe tomatoes and serve ’em with a side of nostalgia.

As the seasons turn, migratory birds and restless humans have something in common: the urge to spread our wings in search of someplace new. Turns out, that feeling has a name.

In Randolph County, a young explorer finds a peaceful escape in a castle built with imagination and towering stalks of native bamboo.

Decades ago, in small-town North Carolina, the future creator of one of the most iconic stereo designs of the 1970s had a dream of rocket ships and rock ’n’ roll. His ideas took him to Manhattan boardrooms and sent him jet-setting around the world. But Granville County always beckoned him home.

For a Wilmington writer, her childhood home was like a fairy tale — full of love and adventure, joy and heartbreak, and even a ghost. But the historic house that she turned into a bed and breakfast holds more than her own memories: Here, endless narratives fill pages and shelves.

Two classic theme parks — Land of Oz in Beech Mountain and Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock — hold fond memories of growing up in North Carolina.

Memories of hitchhiking across North Carolina — and the United States — in the 1970s never dimmed for this author.

An end-of-summer trek along NC Highway 66 in Stokes County provides plenty of kicks — as well as eats — and endless views of the Sauratown Mountains.

For Black families in the 1950s, the ribbons of asphalt that crisscross our state could be dangerous obstacle courses: Most hotels and other businesses denied African-Americans basic services. Many travelers of color looked to the Green Book to find safety on the open road and community in our towns and cities.

The 1960s architecture, croaking call boxes, and carhops toting plastic trays stacked with steaming fries and frosty shakes: What-A-Burger — the beloved North Carolina chain, not the popular Texas franchise — is a living remnant from a time when cars were king.

Shifting sands, tides, and tempests have shaped the Outer Banks for centuries. Now, those forces pose a constant threat to the islands’ lifeline — and a complicated challenge for the keepers of one of the state’s most famous roads.

For nearly a century, North Carolina singers and songwriters have built careers busking for tips in the great outdoors. At these five spots, the kindness of strangers has helped fund some of our most enduring classics.

Stocked with paper maps and picnic lunches, one family’s minivan becomes a time machine, carrying them across North Carolina and back to a simpler era.

In the 1960s, with the expansion of the Consolidated University of North Carolina and the state’s community college system, more North Carolinians than ever head to college classrooms.

Gov. Bob Scott once vowed that he “shall not be thwarted in my appetite for opossum.” Except one time, when he was.