The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the great American road trips: 469 miles of two-lane road running along the crest of the southern Appalachians from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. Asheville sits roughly in the middle and is the largest town anywhere on the route.
Drive at most thirty miles in a day if you want to actually stop at the overlooks. The Folk Art Center just east of Asheville is an excellent first stop, and Craggy Gardens and Mount Mitchell are within an easy hour to the north. Autumn — late September through October — is the famous season, when the hardwood forest turns red and gold, but spring is just as good with rhododendron and laurel in flower. The road is closed in stretches during winter ice storms.