What home-TV zealots dub “curb appeal” or lack thereof is currently a buzzing topic for architects and designers alike. Here, what curb appeal means, and why it matters.
Long-haul travel is slowly but surely opening back up to us. It s great news, but we like to think that the best part of traveling during summer isn t that two-week trip you planned for a year, but the smaller, closer-to-home trips that allow you to turn weekend breaks into mini vacations, from Memorial Day through September. A host of new and easy-to-reach resorts and retreats across the U.S. are giving us plenty of reason to be anywhere but home all summer long, whether it s to kayak in North Carolina or sit by a pool in Palm Springs. Here, a few favorites to book now.
TravelAwaits
Jun.3.2021
Even in a light misty rain, the evening’s drive on the Cherohala Skyway in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, was an adventure featuring one sweeping view of forested swells and clear flowing rivers after another.
A small community in East Tennessee, Tellico Plains is the gateway to one of Tennessee’s newest scenic drives. The Cherohala Skyway, completed in 1990, links the Cherokee National Forest to the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina with a 43-mile stretch of winding roads and abundant scenic overlooks and vistas.
As a hosted guest of Tennessee River Valley Tourism, I sought these famous East Tennessee scenic drives on an epic spring road trip through the state with my friend Emily. We thrilled at the sinuous turns and swells of the highways, our hands dancing right to left as we navigated curves through some of the prettiest areas of the state.
Allan Benton: A Tennessee Country Ham Legend
In a small roadside smokehouse in Madisonville, Tennessee, Allan Benton crafts what top chefs across the U.S. consider the gold standard of country ham and bacon. The potent, provocative smell of hickory smoke draws in any visitor and anyone who tries the finished product.
Since Benton started the business 47 years ago, Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams has become a Southern legend. His dry-cured and smoked hams and thick-cut bacon, made by hand the way his grandparents did, can be found on the menus of leading chefs throughout the South and beyond, including David Chang and Tom Colicchio in New York and Chris Shepherd in Houston. The business has been featured in foodways exhibits at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville and the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, and Benton was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America in 2015.