Story Ideas

Chapel Hill Offers Family Fun

Touring campuses with a son or daughter doesn’t only have to be touring ivy-covered buildings and viewing countless video presentations. Prospective students like to know what attractions, nightlife; dining and shopping opportunities exist near campus. Not only does sightseeing provide a diversion from the decision-making, but it also makes trips fun for siblings brought along for the ride. College towns provide fun vacation destinations for the whole family. Chapel Hill, NC, is the quintessential college town. Home to the nation’s first state university, the town has numerous free attractions, as well as various reasonably priced activities. Check out the shopping, gardens, museums, planetarium, lakes and more.

UNC is Home to Top-Notch Performing and Visual Arts

Memorial Hall kicks off its 2007-2008 season of the Carolina Performing Arts Series with a concert by gospel and rhythm & blues superstar Aretha Franklin and features

  • the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
  • Bang on a Can’s new music marathon
  • Caetano Veloso, the seminal Brazilian artist and activist
  • Pamina Devi, a glorius Cambodian dance interpretation of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’
  • Russia’s oldest symphonic ensemble, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra

At the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, you can experience dazzling multimedia star shows, varied exhibits, year-round programming for all ages and stellar shopping at the Infinity Gift Shop. See the beautiful rose garden and the timeless sundial on the front grounds. The current exhibit, ‘Zoom In: Science at the Extremes,’ is a two-part exhibit that highlights the big and small of our universe through the story of a gamma ray burst discovery and the examination of the inner workings of a human lung.

PlayMakers Repertory Company, currently in its 32nd anniversary season, is the Carolinas’ premier, professional, non-profit theatre company. With its dual commitment to engage the greater Triangle community in an ongoing exploration of theatre and nurture succeeding generations of artists and audiences, PlayMakers performs a five-show season in the Center for Dramatic Art in Chapel Hill.

The Ackland Art Museum’s permanent collection of over 15,000 objects includes the art of Asia, Africa, Europe and America, with works ranging from ancient times to the 21st century. The Museum holds the most significant collection of Asian art in the state and one of the largest collections of works on paper in the Southeast. Long known for its strength in European painting and sculpture, the Ackland has more recently added additional emphasis to the building of its collection of twentieth-century and contemporary art.
Fastest 3/8-Mile Racetrack in America Returns to Orange County

Orange County Speedway is located in Northeastern Orange County in Rougemont on the site of the original Trico Motor Speedway, which was built in the early 1960s. What originally opened as a dirt facility was paved and is currently a 3/8-mile (.375) asphalt, high-banked oval track. The oval has a 16-degree banking in the straightaway and a 19-degree banking in the turns. The banking and wide-sweeping turns make this facility the fastest 3/8 mile track in the country. The track averages 50 feet wide, which offers plenty of room for side-by-side racing among competitors. In the past, —Orange County Speedway has also won a National Speed Award for 3/8-mile track and has won several awards from the Daytona Speedweek’s RPM Race Promoter’s Workshop Awards.

Orange County Speedway was one of the first tracks in the area to have live televised Busch races. Some of the top Winston Cup stars of yesterday “cut their teeth” in racing as regulars at OCS. The list includes Bobby Labonte, Todd Bodine and Jeff and Ward Burton. Most recently, Scott Riggs of Bahama, NC, began his racing career here at the Orange County Speedway. Over the years, many others have competed at OCS in Late Model Sportsman and Busch Races. Some other well known drivers to have raced at Orange County Speedway include Stacey Compton, Greg Davis, Barry Beggarly and Stacey Puryear, as well as Maurice Hill, who is one of the winningest drivers at Orange County Speedway, and Timothy Peters, Late Model Stock Champion at OCS in 2002 and 2003. The 2007 racing season runs March to mid-November.

Chapel Hill’s Newest Attraction Focuses on Kids

Kidzu Children’s Museum is a hands-on museum in the heart of downtown Chapel Hill where children up to 8 years old and the adults in their lives can safely discover, pretend and play to their heart’s content. The current exhibit, ‘Amazing Castles,’ invites children (and their parents and guardians) to don various costumes and step back into the magical world and time of a medieval castle community. The exhibit runs through June 1, 2008. The new 3,000-sq.ft. museum is located at 105 East Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill and is open Tuesday to Sunday. Admission is charged.
Historic Hillsborough (1754): “A Museum Without Walls”

In this historic town, you’ll find an entire downtown district that has been named to the National Register of Historic Places, with more than 100 late 18th and early 19th century structures still standing today. Guided and self-guided tours of Hillsborough’s historic district are available. Hillsborough also features the Old Burwell School, a 19th century Presbyterian school for young ladies and the 1815 Ayr Mount Plantation.

Prominent Southern Writers Live Here. Authors Lee Smith, Allan Gurganus, David Payne, Michael Malone and many others call this small, but growing, historical town home.
Arts Alive!

Orange County in central North Carolina is famous for its creative population. Artists, authors and musicians are found in abundance here. In fact the county, which is nearly 400 square miles in size, is home to an estimated 700–800 artists, both in visual arts and performing arts. Each fall, tour maps guide art lovers to studios located all over Orange County in the Annual Open Studio Tour. See paintings, sculpture, pottery, jewelry, textiles, woodworking, iron, glass and photography. The free annual tour is the first two weekends in November on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Visitors can plan their own itineraries, choosing among the 65 artists participating. Get an inside look at what it really means to create a work of art from scratch. It’s a great experience for all ages.

Southern Garden Tours

Visit Chapel Hill’s North Carolina Botanical Garden, the largest natural Botanical Garden in the Southeast and Hillsborough’s Montrose Garden, a mid-19th century collection of gardens, including a rock garden, scree garden, numerous sunny gardens with varied color schemes and several extensive woodland gardens. A new garden open for group tours by appointment only is Chatwood Gardens, also in Hillsborough. The gardens, which surround a nationally listed historic house (late 18th century), feature woodlands, traditional southern plantings, perennials, herbs, vegetables and a walled Williamsburg-style garden with a spectacular rose collection.
The Chapel Hill Spring Garden Tour is Spring 2008, and the Hillsborough Spring Garden Tour will be Spring 2009.

Food and Fine Dining in Orange County

Some people eat to live. A visit to Orange County is for those of us who live to eat. In Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, food isn’t just about eating. The experience touches on the farmers who grow the food. The best ingredients are selected and transformed into a simple meal or a feast. You can sample the flavors of other cultures—without ever needing your passport—or dig into southern specialties. Take a cooking class that introduces you to new foods and sharpens your culinary skills, shop in award-winning food and cooking stores, and learn about the importance of sustainable agriculture and natural foods. We’ve got suggestions where you can get out in nature if you want some fresh air after a true “southern” feast.

If you want to cap off your evening with entertainment, our vibrant arts scene will entice you with an eclectic mix of music, theatre, or gallery hopping. More than 270 restaurants, including many award-winning, can be found in Orange County. Chapel Hill is home to AAA Four Diamond Carolina Crossroads and Il Palio Ristorante. Find southern fare at Mama Dip’s, shrimp and grits at Crooks Corner and hickory-smoked barbecue at Allen & Son. Also home to two microbreweries—Top of the Hill and Carolina Brewery.

Two new offerings include Chocolaterie Stam (fine-chocolate shop) and Locopops (Mexican-style ices). Also home to three farmer’s markets: Carrboro Farmers Market, Southern Village Farmers Market and the Hillsborough Farmers Market. Also, Carrboro houses the largest food co-op in the southeast: Weaver Street Market.


Did You Know?

Chapel Hill is the ideal setting for any meeting or special event up to 500 people.