The reds and golds and purples that paint our mountains every fall are a sight to behold. But for some, color is missing from the show.
Buskers and Music at the Crossroads
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.
The Bamboo Princess of Asheboro
In Randolph County, a young explorer finds a peaceful escape in a castle built with imagination and towering stalks of native bamboo.
NC Highway 12 is North Carolina’s Line in the Sand
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.
Riding My Thumb
Memories of hitchhiking across North Carolina — and the United States — in the 1970s never dimmed for this author.
A Space-Age Oddity
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.
House of Stories
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.
The Green Book Guide to North Carolina
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.
Coming Home
Pigeon fanciers feed, tend, and protect their birds from the time they’re chicks — only to release them into the world with the faith that their companions will come back to roost.
