Some of the South’s calmest towns share a fence line with its biggest crowds. Take Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited in America. The town at its back door never built a neon strip. Mountain View fills its courthouse square with free fiddle music most weekends. Cleveland keeps the cotton ground where the Delta blues began. Eleven towns pull the same trick, and wild ponies kick it off.
Highlands, North Carolina
Highlands climbs to 4,118 feet inside the Nantahala National Forest. The mountain air kept it a summer retreat, never a boomtown. Waterfalls are the local currency. Drivers once steered behind Bridal Veil Falls. It still spills beside US Highway 64. A paved path runs two miles on. Walkers pass behind the 75-foot Dry Falls.
Cullasaja Falls closes the gorge with a 250-foot drop. A 2-mile loop climbs Whiteside Mountain east of downtown. The summit hits 4,930 feet. The cliffs fall 750 feet toward the Chattooga River. Families have come up for cool summers since the 1870s. The Bascom arts center covers the rainy days.