Downtown Boone
The Boone area is a shopper's dream. West King Street in downtown Boone offers rows of specialty stores, gift shops, galleries, antique marts and bistros. Step inside and you will find Americana on the shelves at Shoppes at Farmer's Hardware, or enjoy the soda-fountain ambiance of Boone Drug.

In 1988, the Mast General Store opened Old Boone Mercantile in downtown Boone, across from Boone Drug, to further enhance the shopping traditions of Boone, connecting the town to its early history.

Browse aisle after aisle at the Wilcox Emporium Warehouse, where more than 230 retailers are clustered, offering treasures and collectibles.

Right next door to the Appalachian State University campus, the downtown Boone business area is always alive with students, locals and visitors. You are sure to enjoy the pleasant, care-free and friendly atmosphere.

Boone Mall
The Boone Mall is a busy, enclosed retail center that includes Belk, JC Penney and other nationally recognized chains, plus locally owned one-of-a-kind shops. Altogether, the Boone Mall has 35 stores within the 217,300-square-foot complex on Blowing Rock Road (US 321). An active participant in a civic-minded community, Boone Mall hosts many regional events including the annual trade show of the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, charity fund raisers, craft shows, festivals and holiday functions.

Just ahead is Boone's newest shopping center, the Shops at Shadowline, at the intersection of Blowing Rock Road (US 321) and Shadowline Drive in Boone. This is a busy retail center, offering an interesting assortment of merchandise and services.

Tanger Outlet Center Shoppes on the Parkway: This unique shopping center where "the sale never ends" consists of more than 35 authentic, name brand outlets featuring women's apparel, men's apparel, children's apparel, hosiery and intimates, footwear, accessories, housewares, home furnishings and more. It is located a half-mile south of the Blue Ridge Parkway on US 321 in Blowing Rock.

Downtown Blowing Rock
From Tanger Shoppes on the Parkway, it's just a short jaunt to Blowing Rock's Main Street. The village atmosphere is quaint and charming. There are many beautiful inns, historic bed and breakfasts, motels. hotels, and luxury resorts. Restaurant choices range from home-style to continental cuisine. Fascinating shops offer antiques, oriental rugs, elegant accessories, local crafts, designer clothing, and much more. Blowing Rock is also the fictitious setting for international best-selling author Jan Karon's "Mitford" series.


Mast General Store:
It's worth a trip to the community of Valle Crucis, to say you've been to the original Mast General Store, c. 1882, which is protected as a National Historic Landmark. Opened in 1883 by Henry Taylor and later sold to W.W. Mast in the early 1900s, shelves are stocked with all you might need for life in the past two centuries as well as most of this one.

If you're a really good dancer, you can do the "High Country Ramble." But, if you've got two left feet, that's perfectly OK, too, just as long as your vehicle's turn signals are working.

The "High Country Ramble" is actually a motor route that has been mapped out to deliver visitors directly to the best crafts and heritage tourism spots in the region, compliments of HandMade in America.

HandMade is an organization that's dedicated to nurturing the crafts culture of the region. The guidebook, "The Craft Heritage Trails of Western North Carolina," is absolutely priceless.

"Boone, Blowing Rock and Foscoe offer up an unrivaled collection of galleries featuring traditional and contemporary work from the hands of craftspeople who are scattered through the High Country."

"To uncover all that this journey has to offer, bring along your sense of adventure. Follow the trail. Take the side trips. Then strike out on your own."

"Plan to stay awhile, maybe overnight or longer. Craft pioneers who have blazed this trail of some 80-odd stops and 120 miles heartily recommend an itinerary of at least four days." Of course, you can always come back...again and again."

P.S. Pick up a copy of the newly published "Farms, Gardens & Countryside Trails of Western North Carolina," also from HandMade in America. From here, take the 34-page "Quilt Top Ramble"... and get your exercise.





The Elegant Westglow Spa

From inexpensive to moderately priced to exquisite, the dining choices in Boone are seemingly limitless. A veritable smorgasbord of restaurant atmospheres is available. Food for any mood is a familiar saying around here. The area boasts an outstanding collection of one-of-a-kind eateries.

Family-style is ever popular at the Dan'l Boone Inn, which appears on Southern Living's list of favorites each year.

Tucked among these mountain hollows, you will also find award-winning chefs who apply their culinary artistry and are featured in major national publications regularly.

Exquisite dining pleasures await in all of Boone, Blowing Rock and Banner Elk. Local chefs have beefy resumes chock-full of qualifying experiences on television, in cook books on the regional and national level, in magazines of regional interest and in major magazines such as Southern Living, Men's Journal and Town & Country.

Chef Eban Carter of Elliot's at Westglow Spa in Blowing Rock has been featured in Taste Full magazine and on UNC-TV's "Tarheel Chefs."

The National Pork Council, which approves only 24 chefs nationwide to represent its programs, chose its only North Carolina representative, John Hofland, from nearby Esseola Lodge in Linville.

Downtown Boone restaurant Caribbean Cafe, and its chef and owner, Stephen Minton, have been acclaimed in the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal, Men's Journal, Skiing magazine, and the Ale Street News, among others. The venue has been on the list of the Top 100 College Bars since 1997.

Mast Farm Inn in Valle Crucis, first operated as a bed and breakfast inn in the early 1900s, is now a premier B&B with nightly dinner service for visitors and the public, alike. Chef Matt Johnston lends his expertise to every item on the menu, creating delicious, elegant meals in a serene valley destination. The Inn's recipes featured in Cooking Light magazine are now available in the cookbook, "The Mast Farm Inn Cookbook."

Around almost every mountain curve, there lies a delightful culinary discovery. Some are familiar tastes and places, some are new and wonderful, but all promise to nourish your fantasies of a heart-warming mountain lifestyle.