The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus is the main attraction and one of the most beautiful in America. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest public university in the United States, and the grounds reflect that history: old-growth trees, Federal-era brick buildings, and a sense of intellectual purpose built into the landscape.
Start your campus walk at the Old Well, the university's symbol, then wander through McCorkle Place past the Davie Poplar — a tulip poplar under which William Richardson Davie supposedly chose the site for the university in 1792. The Coker Arboretum is a five-acre garden within the North Carolina Botanical Garden, beautiful in every season.
Morehead Planetarium stands at the edge of campus and carries unusual history: it was the first facility NASA used to train astronauts in celestial navigation, and the original Mercury Seven astronauts all learned to read the night sky here before going into orbit. Today it runs public shows and is one of the best planetariums in the Southeast.
The Ackland Art Museum on Franklin Street is free and consistently excellent — a proper teaching museum with a serious collection that rewards a slow visit. The Dean E. Smith Center, known locally as the Dean Dome, opened in 1986 and is the cathedral of Carolina basketball. Michael Jordan wore number 23 here before going on to professional fame, and the retired jerseys hanging from the rafters read like a Hall of Fame.
Franklin Street is the town's spine. Books, coffee, restaurants, and bars line both sides for several walkable blocks, with the campus on one end and the rest of the town on the other. Carrboro, immediately to the west, is Chapel Hill's scrappier, more bohemian neighbor — music venues, farmers markets, independent shops, and the kind of bars that close late.