Hendersonville, North Carolina

Downtown Hendersonville is a magnet for tourists – and a well-deserved one. If the town planners and administrators have overlooked any details to make their downtown area more attractive for visitors – I didn’t find it when I walked up and down their streets. From great shopping and restaurants, to architecture and areas of historic interest, downtown Hendersonville has it all. The architectural focus of the downtown area is the Historic Henderson County Courthouse, completed in 1905 and completely renovated in 2008. The largest street festival of the Hendersonville calendar is the annual North Carolina Apple Festival, culminating in the Apple Parade that regularly draws up to 50,000 spectators. Like the county, this town is named for 19th-century North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Leonard Henderson. For some reason yet impervious to us, several small towns in America have erected colorful and creative bear statues. Hendersonville has as many of these adorable ‘critters’ as we have seen in any town. EARNS OUR HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.