Asheville Area Map
NOTE: The Telephone AREA CODE for Western North Carolina is 828
The first 3 digits of the ZIP code are 287 - except 288 for Asheville

Asheville area Map
Buncombe County Directory

The City of Asheville — an Overview

   Asheville really has everything going for it. It has a very modern, busy airport, excellent highway connections by two Interstates. One of them, I-26, has been extended north to I-81 in Tennessee. That extension is one of the most modern, best designed Interstates in the country (yet it still has a 60 mph speed limit). The Asheville area has a number of state highways (many are four-lane) with excellent connections to surrounding communities. Asheville is only two hours from Charlotte (one of the major cities of the southeast), only an hour from Greenville, SC which has a culture all its own and well worth visiting again and again.
   But Asheville, too, has a set of cultures of its own. It has an excellent symphony orchestra, an opera company, several live theatres, a few museums, art galleries – just about any kind of culture you might be looking for, you will find in Asheville. But more than most cities in American, it has some of the most beautiful topography in the country. The longest scenic highway in the world, the Blue Ridge Parkway, rings Asheville on its way to its terminus at Cherokee near the Tennessee border. That Blue Ridge Parkway is extremely popular summer and winter.
   The highest mountain east of the Mississippi, Mt Mitchell, is just a few minutes north on the parkway. In fact, there are scenic wonders in every direction all within a few minutes of downtown Asheville.
   Asheville has its own very popular recreational lake. A few minutes drive to the southwest in Transylvania and Jackson Counties are several dozen spectacular waterfalls that are literally tourist magnets. Of course there are waterfalls in all the other directions of the compass, but the density of waterfalls in Transylvania and Jackson Counties is unequaled.
   Asheville is also the city of fairs. Everything from small street fairs to the huge annual Belle Chere which, every summer, brings people to Asheville from all over the world. If that isn’t enough, surrounding communities – like Hendersonville to the south and Waynesville to the west – have their own fairs, which also draw visitors to the area.
   The University of North Carolina system has a campus here in Asheville, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, which seems to be growing at such a rate as it may become the largest campus of the system. The Buncombe Tech Community College (which institution has changed its name a few times – trying to keep up with its growth) is as large as many universities. There are state colleges north, south, east and west all within commuting distance, plus some private colleges, e.g., Mars Hill College to the north, Montreat College and Warren Wilson College to the east and both internationally recognized. To the west is Western Carolina University which also holds classes in Asheville.

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Asheville has a number of private schools running up through high school. And, of course, Asheville has an excellent pubic school system.

Two of the top tourist attractions here are the Biltmore House — the largest private home in the United States — now open to tourists. The House involved about a thousand workers and five years to build and was the home of George Vanderbilt. More than just the house (castle?), and also viewable, are the lovely gardens.
    The second top attraction is the Thomas Wolf House. Almost destroyed by fire a few years ago, it has been completely restored and is again open to tourists. The National Park Service (which operates and maintains the Blue Ridge Parkway) hosts a Folk Art Center at the Tunnel Road entrance to the Parkway.
   Years ago (there he goes again!) before the Interstates and before 'liquor by the drink' became legal, Asheville was a much smaller, quiet, very relaxed mountain town. The tunnel (which most visitors now never even see) and US-70 connected Asheville to points east. US-70 combined with US-19 and US-23 connected the town to the western counties. There was a drive-in just west of downtown at Montford Street and, on the other side of the tunnel was another drive-in (believe it was call Pops or something like that). The teen-agers would drive, noisily while passing through the tunnel, from one drive-in to the other and generally enjoy them-selves. No one got hurt and, back then, almost no one was offended. This was when Sears Roebuck was downtown — not in a shopping mall - and had the only escalator in town; the littler kids love that. No one minded that, either.
   Asheville has 'matured'. By means of many, many annexations it has swollen to many times its former size. They blew a giant hole in Beaucatcher Mountain, called it a cut and split the town with I-240. Money flowed like the French Broad River. The chain restaurants and fast-food joints moved in. Shopping malls were built (first just outside of town but Asheville just annexed them). Grid-lock got so bad during rush hour (rush hour?) the State had to add two more lanes to the old French Broad (alias Patton Avenue) Bridge. Now there is more retail activity on the east side of the tunnel than in downtown Asheville.
Welcome to Western North Carolina's version of New York City! Asheville will probably be your launch point in your search for a new home in our Western North Carolina mountain paradise. Let your mouse take you on a tour. There is a little bit of just about everything in our mountains, — just on a smaller scale. And that's good! There is a lot of justification for all the articles touting Asheville as the 'Retirees Paradise of the Country'.

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Asheville area Map