A Self-Guided Tour
A song heard through an open doorway. A mural you hadn’t noticed before. A building that makes you stop and look up. Getting to know Asheville can begin with something small, then lead you into a story you didn’t expect.
We put this guide together to help you follow those stories. Some belong to familiar names, like Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Others lead beyond Asheville to Black Mountain College and Penland School of Craft, or closer to home, into the studios, galleries, theatres, and music venues where people are making work of their own.
There isn’t one route through it all. You might spend an afternoon looking at architecture, seek out a place connected to a favorite writer, or let your interest in music take you somewhere new. Along the way, we hope you’ll get to know not just the places, but the people and ideas that give them meaning.
Choose a category below and start wherever your curiosity takes you. Whether you’re walking around town, planning a visit, or exploring from home, let WPVM introduce you to a few of the neighbors.
The high French Broad Valley is where one of the world’s oldest rivers in the world begins just northwest of the Eastern Continental Divide near the northwest border of South Carolina. The headwaters spill from the 50-foot-high Courthouse Falls near Balsam Grove. Then, it flows through the high valley north to merge with the Clinch, then the Tennessee River around Knoxville. From there, it flows over to the Mississippi, and like the river, the culture of WNC flows out to the world. The European settlers of the region lived a hardscrabble, mostly self-sufficient life in the hills and hollers. The most common of the settlers were from northern Europe, Ireland, Scotland, and England. Music was how they entertained and communicated. They hunted and eked out a life while constantly living under threat from the harsh elements and Indian confrontations. This pioneer life gave them almost superhuman abilities, as the British learned in the “Overmountain Men”
