Johnson City is one of the "Tri-Cities" of northeastern Tennessee (together with Kingsport and Bristol), tucked into the southern Appalachian mountains close to the Virginia and North Carolina borders. It is home to East Tennessee State University — which anchors the downtown — and to a growing outdoor-sports scene built around the rivers, lakes and trails of the surrounding Blue Ridge.
The city itself is modest and easy to walk: a compact downtown of red-brick commercial buildings around Founders Park, a couple of decent breweries, and the Hands On! Discovery Center for children. The real draw is the countryside. Within thirty minutes you can be on the Appalachian Trail, cycling the Tweetsie Trail rail-trail to Elizabethton, or fishing on the South Holston River — one of the best tailwater trout streams in the Southeast. The Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site preserves the story of the short-lived State of Franklin, an early American secession that gives the region one of its odder historical footnotes. Bluegrass runs deep here too: the town is a short drive from the old railroad crossroads of Bristol, birthplace of country music.