Upcontry- Resort Town of Highlands North Carolina aptly named

For those of you that prefer exclusivity in your mountain vacation retreats, you will be hard pressed to improve on Highlands, NC. This remote mountain city was incorporated in 1879. Legend has it that a pair of town developers, Samuel Kelsey and Clinton Hutchinson, drew a line on a map from New York to New Orleans and from Chicago to Savannah. They felt that the point of intersection would be the proverbial sweet spot for a vacation community. Aptly named Highlands is located at the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains at an average elevation of 4118 feet, the highest incorporated mountain town east of the Mississippi. Initially, Highlands was promoted as a health retreat in a resort atmosphere in the summer months due to the clean air and picturesque beauty of this breathtaking Blue Ridge area.

Strategically located on the Highlands Plateau of the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern North Carolina, the township itself lies just north of a common boundary with South Carolina and Georgia and easy driving distance to the Tennessee North Carolina state line to due west. The town of Highlands proper has a tad over 2000 permanent residents and surges to upwards of 25,000 summer residents. Straddling the Blue Ridge Divide, the surrounding mountain valleys provide the main watershed of the eastern part of the continent as well as owning the distinction as being the source of the headwaters of the Chattooga and Cullasaja Rivers. The Chattooga, now a National Scenic and Wild River, plunges precipitously from the escarpment of the Blue Ridge, and flows southward to the Savannah River of the eastern Atlantic drainage while the Cullasaja, in contrast, flows in the opposite direction to the Tennessee River, a major tributary of the Mississippi that empties into the Gulf of Mexico. So much for the history/geography lesson, here is recreational information. There are no less than forty mountain golf courses along winding highway 64 county by county on the easterly run to Hendersonville, North Carolina and Interstate 26.

Posted at 09:31 AM in Carolina Heritage Corridor, Historic Mountain Districts in the Carolinas, Mountain Festival, Mountain Resort Golf Packages, Mountain Vacation Rentals, Scenic Attractions, Sports, Travel, Upcountry Travel News | Permalink | Comments (0) Technorati Tags: Carolina Heritage Corridor, Historic Mountain Districts in the Carolinas, Mountain Vacation Rentals, Scenic Attractions, Travel, Upcountry Travel News |