Everyone in the Charlotte area should experience the Carolina Renaissance Festival at least once. Or three times (and counting), in the case of my family. The kids can’t get enough of it. It is an oddly captivating experience. Part festival, part artisan marketplace, part amusement park, and all entertaining, it is truly a unique experience. Huzzah! The festival has a permanent 25 acre home on Poplar Tent Road in Huntersville but is only open on weekends in October and November. Tickets are ridiculously expensive (advance online price of $25 for adults and $15 for kids 5-12) and basically only get …

Located about 30 minutes north of Charlotte in Mooresville, Carrigan Farms is a 5th generation family-owned farm.  With pick your own strawberries in the summer and pumpkins and hayrides in the fall, it is one of several farms to choose from in the Charlotte area for a fun family outing.  But Carrigan Farms also has a feature that is completely unique – a natural, spring-fed body of water known as The Quarry. In the 1960s, this area of the farm was quarried for granite stone used to build I-77.  After mining half a million tons of granite, they struck a …

Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens is one of our favorite places.  Located in Belmont, NC, the gardens are about 20 miles and 40 minutes from Charlotte.  Although they claim to be easily accessible from either I-85 or I-77, the reality is that it is pretty far off both highways.  But don’t let that stop you.  It is well worth the trip. We have visited the gardens probably a dozen times over the years for everything from class field trips to seeing the Christmas lights to just enjoying a beautiful spring day wandering the grounds.  When they announced a new event this …

Fall is my favorite time of year, and North Carolina is an amazing place to be in the fall.  The foliage is gorgeous, the weather is perfect, and we could spend every weekend outside doing something different.  Living close to the mountains and close to farmland, there is no shortage of fall activities in the area. Our favorite annual tradition is going to AW Shucks farm in Monroe, NC.  Our first visit was in 2010 when the boys were 9 months and 2.5 years old, and we have been back every year since.  Check out these munchkins on their first …

Straddling the North and South Carolina border, Carowinds is just a hop, skip and a jump away from most areas of Charlotte.  We’ve gone many times over the years, enjoying Planet Snoopy, the younger kids section of the park.  But for years I kept a big secret from my kids… Carowinds has a water park!  Seriously, they had no idea whatsoever that it was there.  It’s not hard to avoid if you come in the North Gate and stay in Planet Snoopy.  When they were little I just didn’t want to deal with the stress of a water park.  But …