Place to stay between New Orleans to Asheville

Depending on the route you want to take, I find Chattanooga and the Atlanta area your best bets. Both are a somewhat more than "half way," but are straight basically flat interstate drives, where you can get to each at a decent time for dinner if you leave in the morning and will put you in Asheville with some nice mountain sort of drives around lunch time the next day, if you leave in the morning then.

Nothing planned yet…just looking for ideas and I’ll go from there.

If possible I always try to avoid driving thru Atlanta. Traffic is always awful there all the time..

Birmingham. There are some nice hotels (the Grand Bohemia) and good restaurants in southside. Downside is that still leaves you about five.5 hours from Asheville. Not sure how far up the road you wanted to get.

It doesn’t matter if it takes a little longer. The wife and I are leaving Saturday morning and don’t have a room in Asheville till Sunday night. The kids are flying up to meet us on Wednesday after they get off of work and school.

If y’all have any suggestions of things to do in Asheville I’ll take that too.

Thanks

quote:

---

It doesn’t matter if it takes a little longer. The wife and I are leaving Saturday morning and don’t have a room in Asheville till Sunday night

---

This is what I would do.
Drive to Fort Payne, AL. I would take the Interstates. Fort Payne is where Alabama (country music group) is from. The Trail of Tears passed through there and there is a small historical spot. There is a Hampton Inn there.

But from Fort Payne I would take the scenic route.
Go east out of FP, stop by the Little River National Preserve. Continue east to Rome, Ellijay, Blue Ridge and Dillard Georgia. Enter NC and go through Highland, Cashiers and Brevard and get on I 26 a little south of Asheville. Without stops that is supposed to be a 6 hour and 22 minute drive but I would plan on 8 to 10.

If you read the Travel Board often you know that most of those places are mentioned frequently.
[/url][/img]

[/url][/img]
[/url][/img]
Some pictures of Little River Canyon. If you get to Fort Payne early enough you could ride out there in the pm.

If the water is high enough, which I doubt it is, you may see kayakers going over the water fall.

An alternate route would be to go north of Chattanooga to Tellico Plains and take the Cherohala Skyway to Robbinsville and then Bryson City, to Cherokee, Maggie Valley and into Asheville.

Or north of Chattanooga you exit the interstate at Cleveland and go by Oconee, to Murphy to Franklin to Asheville.

Blue Ridge for the night and win.

quote:

---

Little River National Preserve.

---

We stopped there once and it was pretty cool. I believe they stated it was the deepest canyon east of the Mississippi River at 600 ft.

Chattanooga is a great stop, but if you are looking for a small town check out Clayton, Georgia. Redneck mountain town north of Atlanta with a nice downtown. Puts you on through the scenic route to Asheville.

I'm going to ask about the quickest route. Just booked a trip this morning for the week before Thanksgiving. We have a room in Asheville on November 17, but I'm thinking it might be best to drive a few hours on the 16th after work and make a stop for the night. That would put me leaving at about 4pm on the 16th. Leaving from Prairieville. Don't care much about the sights on the way out. We're going see the Biltmore for a quick trip so I just need the fastest route with the best stop 4,5,6 hours from here. What you guys got?