Highlands Travel Guide

For more than a century Highlands has been a resort town, with many trendy shops, inns and restaurants. It is not an inexpensive place to live because many wealthy people maintain summer homes here. One part-time resident of Highlands whom I have personally met is Jack Eckerd of Florida, founder of one of America's largest drug store chains.

During the years that I lived in Augusta, Georgia, with sweltering summer days often climbing above 100F, I made numerous trips to Highlands just to temporarily escape the heat. Highlands would always be 20 to 25 degrees cooler than Augusta, about 3.5 hours to the south.

The area around Highlands is also a nature lovers paradise, surrounded by the Nantahala National Forest. The unique configuration of the mountains causes Highlands gets more than 90 inches of rain a year, insuring that the area is always lush and green. The mountains have an amazing diversity of plant and animal life. The Nantahala National Forest is also well known for its numberous waterfalls and hiking trails which lead to magnificent scenic vistas.

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I passed through Highlands for the first time on a trip with my Dad and brothers in the early 1960s. The thing I remember most was the excitement of actually driving behind Bridal Veil Falls on US Hwy. 64 just east of Highlands.

Years ago the highway was re-routed to pass just in front of the falls, however the old stretch of road behind the falls remains and you may still drive around behind it. In this photo the water was unusually low during late summer. During most of the year the flow is more impressive.

Winters can be cold at this high elevation and I have visited Bridal Veil Falls when large icicles hung from the cliff and a huge mound of ice was formed at the bottom. On occasion the falls freezes until it is a complete column of ice.