The rugged upper reaches of Grandfather Mountain State Park make a great pairing with Blowing Rock or Banner Elk, North Carolina. Courtesy VisitNC.com
In online voting that took place earlier this year, our readers selected a set of great town/park visits in three categories based first on town or city size. Paired with each town/city nominee was a state park within about 25 miles.Â
The result: Our 2021 Top Town/Park Pairs! Click the links below to take a look at the winners. And our thanks to our readers for your votes!
- Population of 50,000 and Above: The Top 4
- Population of 10,000-49,999: The Top 10
- Population of Under 10,000: The Top 2 Per State
The story above first appeared in our July/August 2021 issue.
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Angela Minor
View all postsAngela Minor is a contributing editor and creator/author of the Birds of the Blue Ridge online series for BRC. She pens travel and nature articles as a freelance writer for U.S. News & World Report and numerous other regional and national publications and created the state park birding series for Bird Watcher’s Digest.
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