New Year's Resolution: Utilize the Art Roads and Farm Trails of NC

Having stumbled upon a motivating website today called Homegrown Handmade, I decided to make a New Year's resolution to better support and understand North Carolina culture. Homegrown Handmade is a collaboration of artists, farmers, and rural creative entrepreneurs. It promotes sustainable tourism in rural areas of North Carolina through self-guided driving tours. It's an economic and tourism development project, but it also helps us understand how agriculture, rural living, and art have all come together to form specific and different pockets of North Carolina culture.

When one visits Homegrown Handmade's website, you are given the option of exploring one of three trails: Foothills, Piedmont, or Coast. Each "trail" is really a wealth of information on festivals, art studios, wineries, and farms to help a potential tourist to plan a trip.

Here is a long weekend trip I've already planned from the Foothills Trail for June:

Starting out Friday, leisurely drive to the Mount Airy Fiddlers' Convention. This weeklong festival is filled with old-time music performances and free demonstrations by skilled musicians. Spend the day listening, dancing, and visiting. Saturday morning, visit the Downtown Cinema Theatre for the a.m. taping of the longest-running bluegrass radio program in the United States, "Saturday Merry-Go-Round." Saturday afternoon, take a short drive to Westfield to kayak at the Hanging Rock Outdoor Recreation Center. That evening, enjoy the sunset view and listen to MORE bluegrass and folk music at Round Peak Vineyards. End the trip with a scenic drive back down 89.

That's just one trip of so many across the state. If you're interested in planning a trip, Homegrown Handmade has a great guidebook available here.