Asheville

What a great city for weird people like myself and my friends. The city is surrounded on all sides by the blue ridge mountains, and downtown is small, hilly, and really lively. I went last Thanksgiving and it was way too cold to really explore the city, but this time was perfect. Lots of funky little art galleries, bookstores, and restaurants. It is definitely a hippie city, but it's in the south!


We ate at a really great vegetarian restaurant called Rosetta's Kitchen (get the tempeh reuben, it's magical), and drank local beer at the Thirsty Monk. If you haven't been, then GO!

I think one of the southeast's greatest strengths is its small cities. There are so many really interesting and beautiful ones: Asheville, Greenville SC, Savannah, Chattanooga, Chapel Hill, etc. All of these towns take the things that I love about the big cities (namely ATL) that are too spread out to be really accessible, and smush them down into a more compact version.