Winston-Salem is the fifth-largest city in North Carolina and one of the most historically interesting. Moravians settled here in the 1700s, establishing what became Salem — they founded the first women's school in the United States (Salem Academy) and later Salem College, both still in operation. The tobacco industry made the city wealthy through R.J. Reynolds, and the textile tradition lives on through Hanes and the hosiery business.
Old Salem is the essential stop — a restored Moravian settlement where costumed interpreters demonstrate eighteenth-century crafts and daily life. Do not miss the Winkler Bakery for sugar cake and lovefeast buns, recipes that have not changed in centuries. The attached MESDA holds the country's only major collection of early southern decorative arts, and the Moravian cemetery God's Acre is unlike any other graveyard in America.
Downtown is dominated by the Art Deco Reynolds Building, the prototype for the Empire State Building, with the Stevens Center hosting the city's professional-level performances. The Innovation Quarter — built into the former Reynolds tobacco factories — is where the new restaurants, bars and breweries cluster. West of the centre, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art houses an outstanding collection in the original R.J. Reynolds country estate, and the contemporary SECCA and the Norman-revival Graylyn Estate are both worth half a day each.
Tanglewood Park nearby is a pleasant day out, with a lake, golf courses, an equestrian center, and bike trails spread across the former estate of the Reynolds family. For roadside Americana, the last Shell clamshell station and the original Krispy Kreme site are quick stops on the way out of town.