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| October is a great month to visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and the Crooked Road. courtesy © VIRGINIA TOURISM CORPORATION, |
As I recently wrote in a blog post, Brand USA wants you to go beyond the usual suspects when it comes to visiting the US to explore wonderful places that you never heard of. That’s the first challenge, the big tourist brands take the lion’s share of international visits. But the US, like Canada, is an enormous country. There are literally thousands of places that one may like if we only knew about them. Because of my work with tourist destinations I do come across places I would never have otherwise learned about. One of those or rather a few of those places are in the State of Virginia (or the Commonwealth of Virginia to use its official name). I’m referring to the towns in and around what is known as the Crooked Road, an area in southwestern virginia where mountain music, Appalachian music and indeed country music were born.
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| Abingdon. courtesy © VIRGINIA TOURISM CORPORATION, |
I actually wanted to do this trip last Fall, but I just did not have the time. So maybe this coming Fall will be the one for this music pilgrimage. I don’t have a specific itinerary yet, but the idea is to either drive down or fly to Washington (where we’d rent a car), stay a 1 night in Alexandria, then continue on to Roanoke for 1 night. From Roanoke we’ll drive to Abingdon where we’ll stay maybe 3 nights and travel around the small towns looking for music and musicians. After a visit to Bristol and its Birthplace of Country Music Museum we’ll continue on to Nashville, TN. At this time, I am thinking the best way to do this trip would be to fly to Dulles airport and rent a one-way car to leave at the airport in Nashville before flying back to Toronto. What do you think?
Source: canadianandworldtourism.com