HIGHLANDS
Highlands, NC: The Aspen of the East (But With Better Biscuits)
Upscale and outdoorsy, Highlands, NC is a scenic small town in the Nantahala with big views, luxury hotels, and a dining scene worthy of a major city.
By Eric Barton | May 8, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist. He has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades and has written for publications including Food & Wine, Outside, and Men’s Health. Email him here.
We’d barely started the Whiteside Mountain hike when we took the trail less traveled—the right fork, the one that’s mostly stairs. More like obstacles than actual helpful steps upwards, mostly uneven slabs of rock and six-by-sixes that had come loose from their moorings, scattered along the trail like Lincoln logs. The forest here is dense, maples mostly that had just filled with green for spring, just occasionally giving glimpses of the grandeur to come.
And then the trees fell away. My wife, our labradoodle named Finn and I ascended a rock face, and the valley below rolled out into layers of shadowed hollers, far-off peaks, and sheer cliffs jutting like skyscrapers. There were cotton balls floating on a Caribbean-blue sky, and we stood on the edge of it all, the world dropping below us, sliced like birthday cake.
Here’s the thing about Highlands: You come for the hiking, the fly fishing, the waterfalls that demand a drive down hairpin roads. But what you don’t expect is just how grand the place feels, both on the trails and in the town. Highlands is the Aspen of the East. The shops carry alpaca throws and handmade leather boots. The restaurants have chefs that made it in some big city before finding this little quiet escape. This is mountain town luxury, done quietly.
Trailborn’s lobby
After the hike, we checked into Trailborn Highlands, a newly renovated hotel that still has parking right in front of your room but inside looks like a Perigold catalog came to life. The bed was big, the aesthetic was Ace Hotel but in the mountains, and Finn immediately located the softest spot on the thick duvet.
Dinner that night was at the bar of Four65 Woodfire Bistro, where we ordered a margherita pizza we didn’t plan to finish but did anyway, plus a negroni and a glass of wine for the wife. Back in the room later, Finn snooozed in a blissful post-hike coma by the fireplace. We wondered what we’d do for work if we lived here (I’d build furniture and she’d teach yoga), while also working out the best of vacation discussions: which adventures to take on tomorrow.
Day Two: Low Clouds, High Taste
We woke to rain, the soft kind that taps politely on the window before settling in for the day. It was the kind of weather that makes you cancel plans you didn’t want to do anyway. So instead, the three of us stretched out across the king bed in our garden-level room at the Trailborn, just a few doors down from the sauna that was sending up little puffs of steam like it too had decided to lean into the slowness.
Trailborn has that rare ability to feel both freshly designed and cozily lived-in. There are adirondack chairs around a firepit and a row of beach cruisers by the front entrance, plus a lounge with board games and a soundtrack that spins everything from Miles Davis to Lana Del Rey. The vibe is “summer camp for people who read Bon Appétit.” You can borrow a trail map and explore the Nantahala or book an hour in the sauna, with its own private garden area.
Whiteside Mountain
Highlands Wine Shoppe
When the drizzle faded to mist, we wandered into town and grabbed lunch at The Ugly Dog Public House—a local favorite with a name that promises canine chaos, though oddly, dogs are only allowed outside. We sat inside, watching the mist turn to fog, and had a solid quesadilla and a better-than-it-had-to-be Cobb salad, big on bacon and blue cheese.
That afternoon, we stopped in at Highlands Wine Shoppe, perched on a little hill on Main Street. It’s the kind of place that seems designed to slow you down: tables and chairs arranged beneath shade trees, couples clinking glasses and trading stories about pickleball victories, and Finn trotting up to greet everyone who came to the entrance, like he’d been hired to do it. We shared a glass, then a charcuterie plate, and seriously debated canceling dinner in favor of another round.
The Supper Club’s roast chicken
But dinner was at Highlands Supper Club, the Trailborn’s log cabin restaurant that feels like it belongs in a Wes Anderson film about moonshine bootleggers. We gorged on deviled eggs topped with blue crab and smoked tomato, a Caesar with crostini slathered in smoked trout rilette, and a cioppino with Carolina shrimp and local trout that tasted like the Atlantic had made peace with the Appalachians. The star, though was the half chicken that came with bacony collards, fluffy rice, and a biscuit big enough to qualify as furniture, each element tasting like recipes made better by several generations. I wish I could say we saved room for the warm apple cobbler for two.
We ended the night by the fire pit, sipping cocktails we carried from the restaurant. Around us, couples roasted marshmallows and held hands as the sky did its nightly costume change—gold to rust to black—while Finn curled up like a toasted marshmallow himself, content in the glow.
Dry Falls
Day Three: One More Trail, Then the Road
The next morning came early, with strong coffee and banana bread in Trailborn’s lobby, the rain mercifully gone, replaced by a fog that hung like curtains to block the morning sun. Finn was back in greeter mode, offering tail wags to everyone headed out for their own adventures.
We were due home by lunch but had time for one last stop: Dry Falls. The name’s a bit misleading—you will get misted—but the payoff is enormous. A short paved path leads to a roaring 75-foot waterfall you can actually walk behind, the sound of it so loud it drowns out everything but the thought that this—this moment, with the cold spray on your face and moss-covered rock on every side—is probably the reason people never want to leave Highlands. It’s loud and wild and slightly theatrical, the natural equivalent of a standing ovation.
Four65 Woodfire Bistro
Coming to this place in the Western North Carolina mountains, here’s what we didn’t expect: that this tiny town of 1,000 people, nestled up high in the Nantahala, would feel more curated than rustic. Highlands is 10 degrees cooler than the rest of western North Carolina, both literally and culturally. It’s where people who know the difference between a good pinot and a really good pinot come to get mud on their hiking boots, and then change into cashmere for dinner.
It’s a mountain town, yes. But one that knows which fork goes with the oysters.
