Love Buggy Island Tour

While some of our group wanted to spend our first full day in TCI relaxing at the resort, others wanted to get out and explore. Guess which group I was in! My friend and I thought it would be a great idea to get out and see the island and get the lay of the land. We chose the Love Buggy Island Tour because it looked like a really fun way to explore. And it was! Island Style Tours TCI picked us up from our hotel and took us to their location, where we got a brief (but hilarious) lesson …

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Snowshoe

After our big ski trip to Keystone last year, we were underwhelmed at the thought of spending this President’s Day skiing in North Carolina’s mountains. We wanted a bigger mountain but a trip out west wasn’t in the cards for this year. We had always heard that Snowshoe WV was the best skiing in the southeast so we decided to check it out. Compared to the NC ski resorts or even to Winterplace WV, Snowshoe is definitely a step up in ski experiences. The three biggest factors differentiating Snowshoe from its competitors in the southeast are the size of the mountain, …

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Museum of Illusions

The Museum of Illusions in uptown Charlotte opened last month and we’ve been anxious to visit ever since we saw the first mind-bending preview ads on my FaceBook feed. The museum is an international chain but this is only the 7th location in the United States. Located in a small ground floor space in the Ally Center, the building has its own parking garage, making for an easy, stress-free visit. At $20 for kids tickets (ages 5-12) and $24 for adult tickets, this is not a cheap outing. It seems especially pricey given the small size of the museum and …

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Woolly Worm Festival

Punxsutawney PA has a groundhog. Banner Elk NC has woolly worms. Both are tasked with predicting the winter weather. And both have a fun festival surrounding their predictions. Every third weekend in October, more than 20,000 people descend upon Banner Elk to watch the woolly worms race their way to the top of a 3 foot rope for a chance to be named the official winter weather forecaster of the year. Woolly worms have 13 segments and winter has 13 weeks. What better way to predict each week’s weather than by the color of the winning worm’s segments? A black …

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Tweetsie Railroad Ghost Train

On Friday and Saturday nights from the end of September through Halloween, Tweetsie Railroad transforms itself into a “spooktactular” destination. With haunted houses, freaky forests, and a ghost train ride, Tweetsie invites older kids (ages 8 and up) to join them for a frightfully good time. During the day, the park is open with all of its regular Wild West adventures and rides, but when the sun goes down the creepy creatures come out. Tickets for the night-time festivities are sold separately ($52 ages 13+, $35 kids 3-12, kids under 3 free). Your pre-purchased ticket allows you entry to the …

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Sky Valley Zip Tours

We spent a beautiful fall weekend in the mountains with friends and our featured activity was zip lining. My oldest son and I had been zip lining in the NC Mountains before at Hawksnest and found the experience slightly underwhelming. I was anxious to see if Sky Valley Zip Tours in Blowing Rock would be a more exciting adventure. The quick answer is yes! It was great – much more scenic and exciting than Hawksnest. The zip lines were longer and faster, the scenery more dramatic, and the guides fantastic. Throw in two bonus adventures along the course and this …

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Grand Caverns

The drive between NC and NJ is becoming old hat to us now and we are running out of options for places to stop and break up the trip. Three years ago we stopped at Luray Caverns and my oldest son declared it “the coolest thing he had ever done” at the time. Since I was coming up empty on new ideas for a mid-way stop, I figured we would check out one of the other caverns in the area. Grand Caverns is the oldest “show cave” in the US. Discovered in 1804, tours began 2 years later and have …

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Big Brook Preserve

My boys have long loved looking for shark’s teeth on the beach so I decided to try to find a good spot in NJ to go hunting for them. Imagine my surprise when a google search for NJ shark teeth popped up not a beach but a creek 15 miles inland. Big Brook Preserve is located in Colts Neck, NJ and is home to fossils that date back to the late Cretaceous Period (67-74 million years ago). During the Cretaceous period, NJ was submerged underwater. Prehistoric animal remains that were left on the sea floor became buried over time under the …

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Old Port

Running parallel to the St Lawrence River for over 2km, Vieux-Port is a popular destination for its historical landmarks, cultural attractions, and huge variety of activities and entertainment. There is something for everyone at Montréal’s Old Port. We headed down to the Old Port after dinner on our second evening in Montréal. L’International des Feux Loto-Québec was running on most Saturdays and Wednesdays from the end of June to the beginning of August, lighting up the night sky with internationally themed firework displays. The week we were there, the international theme was… Canada! The Myths and Legends of Canada fireworks show …

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Old Montréal

Vieux-Montréal, or Old Montréal, was established by French settlers in 1642, making it one of the oldest city neighborhoods in North America. Many of the squares and buildings and all of the charm remain from the 17th century settlement. Our hotel was located in Old Montréal so we naturally saw a lot of the area just in our comings and goings. In addition to our wanderings through Old Montréal, I followed an excellent walking tour from Lonely Planet’s pocket guide to Montréal and Québec City. The easy loop took me about an hour at a leisurely pace. Leaving from Le …

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