Ben had a race near Johnson City, TN, so we decided to combine the trip with an overnight visit to Asheville, NC. A friend recently moved there, and although we have made a few trips there earlier this year, we love Asheville and were excited to do some gorgeous fall hikes and visit some breweries.
Nashville, TN to Johnson City, TN (5.5 hours)
On Friday after school, we drove the 5.5 hours with stops to Johnson City, TN. Read more about our tips for long road trips here. On this trip, the kids read for an hour(!) before digging into other activities and a movie.
Magic Treehouse
Frozen Pop-up
Lacing Letters
We made a slightly longer stop about halfway near Kingston, TN for Cracker Barrel. It’s my favorite stop when we’re not crunched for time. It’s been a while since we’ve eaten indoors on a trip. (Shout out to Pfizer!) They are generally pretty quick and have kid’s meals and a gift shop to buy some candy for the remaining portion of the road trip. We arrived at our hotel at 9pm CST/10pm EST with tired kiddos who went to sleep right away.
Holiday Inn Johnson City
We have spent a lot of this year staying in Hyatt hotels but there weren’t any in the areas we were looking at for this trip. We used credit card perks for our one-night stay at the Holiday Inn Johnson City. The cash price for this hotel was $160, but we paid nothing for the night except for a $25 pet fee! We have an IHG credit card which comes with an annual free night certificate that can be used for hotels that cost 40k points or less per night. There is an annual fee for the card, so it’s not a free night, its a $160 hotel for the cost of the annual fee ($95)
We didn’t do anything in the city of Johnson City. We just used the hotel as an overnight stop. We chose this hotel over others in the area because of its pet-friendly policy. Otherwise, we may have picked a different hotel that came with breakfast or other amenities. The room itself was a little outdated and small but suited our needs fine. Read more here about sleeping with kids on vacations.
TN State Park Run: Rocky Fork, Flag Pond, TN
The TN state parks put together a yearly informal running series throughout the state. Nearby running clubs organize small runs or 100 people on average (usually an older crowd!). There are over 20 runs throughout the fall and winter, and they have a system where they add up points and award prizes based on how many races you placed in. We usually like to travel to a few each year. While a few are close to Nashville, most are several hours away. The runs always start at 11am local time, which means sometimes we do an overnight trip, and sometimes we drive in the morning.
The kids and I like to cheer Ben on at the start and then spend an hour collecting leaves and pine cones or finding a nearby playground while we wait for him to return. TN state parks are varied and beautiful. This run was 30 minutes south of Johnson City, TN at the Rocky Fork State Park. Ben did a 5 mile run with around 30 people. (Shoutout to Ben who placed 4th!)
Drive to Asheville, NC
On Saturday afternoon, we did a quick 45 minute drive to Asheville, NC where we spent 24 hours filling our time with beautiful fall leaves and breweries and friend time. After burgers and beers at Hillman Brewery, (we had been there before!), we decided we didn’t want to do a hike and instead spent a few hours driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopping at overlooks. Gorgeous! We stayed overnight at a friend’s house and spent the evening watching UT lose at football and eating pizza delivered for dinner.
Maggie Valley, NC
In the morning, we headed to the Maggie Valley area, around 40 minutes West of Asheville. By stopping for lunch in this area, we were able to cut some time off our drive back to Nashville. This area definitely deserves a longer future visit. There are cute mini-golf stops, pancake shops, gem mining, and little shops. And waterfalls! There were several to choose from. We did a brief hike at Sloco Falls. It was only a 10-minute 0.2 mile walk to an overlook, and there were some areas for walking down further to the bottom of the waterfall. Not for tiny feet, but our kiddos did okay (they’re 4 and 6). It can be slippery, so the path has some ropes for stability, but we didn’t let the kids go all the way down. After this, we drove to another overlook to see more fall leaves. So pretty. Love it!
We went to Bearwaters brewery in Maggie Falls for lunch. (They have a location in Canton that we’ve stopped at before). They were busy, but the food was decent, and the kids liked that they had Uno and chess sets out to play with. The patio was dog-friendly, and this was a nice finish to a quick weekend trip.
Drive to Nashville, TN
Our drive back to Nashville, TN was straightforward and easy. We made a quick stop at Love’s travel stops. I made them a fun checklist using dry erase boards and pens that they used to find cows, houses, and gas stations that occupied them for an hour. And then we went ahead and let the kids watch TV because even if it’s a short vacay, it’s still a vacation!
