Sure travel bets may be hard to come by, but here are some solid ideas to start planning your 2015 vacation – five for the Carolinas, five for North America and five for overseas.
Carolinas
Fort Fisher, in January: The don’t-miss commemoration for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is Jan. 17-18 at Fort Fisher, just south of Wilmington – the Confederate seaport Fort Fisher was built to protect. Wilmington was the last major port still in Southern hands; that raised the ante. After a failed attempt in December 1864, the Union armada returned in mid-January and after a severe bombardment successfully launched the biggest pre-D Day amphibious landing in history.
The 150th anniversary ( www.nchistoricsites.org/fisher; www.friendsoffortfisher.com) features re-enactments, lectures, exhibits, drills, tours and more. Organizers say 10,000 to 15,000 will attend that weekend; more than 500 re-enactors will participate. Stretches of the enormous earthen fortification are preserved, adding a jolt of reality to the state-owned site.
Pleasure Island – the string of beaches between Wilmington and Fort Fisher – is loaded with rental properties; January is the off-season so rooms and deals abound. For the kids: One of the N.C. Aquariums is minutes from Fort Fisher.
Greensboro, in January and September: Two major event are scheduled for 2015. With Greensboro being a straight 90-minute shot up Interstate 85, either could be crunched to a day trip.
The U.S. Figure Skating Championships ( www.northcarolina2015.com) will be Jan. 17-25 at the Greensboro Coliseum. More than $54 million in venue improvements have been made since the competition was staged there in 2011. Besides competitions, there will be an outdoor fan festival with demos, autograph sessions and activities.
The National Folk Festival – Sept. 11-13 – is a free-admission outdoor festival that celebrates a wide variety of high-caliber American and international music and dance and other populist performance arts. “The National” ( www.ncta-usa.org) has been around since 1934 and attracts 100,000 or more fest-goers these days. The gathering moves around the country; it is relocating from Nashville, Tenn., to Greensboro – where it will also be held in 2016 and 2017.
Asheville’s “Downton” spring: The closest many will ever come to Edwardian manor life might be promenading through Biltmore Estate. How appropriate that the Asheville attraction will be garb-channeling “Downton Abbey,” the hit PBS import about English country swells and their servants trying to survive World War I and the Jazz Age. Feb. 5 through Memorial Day, Biltmore is hosting “Dressing Downton: Changing Fashion for Changing Times,” an exhibition of more than 40 costumes from the British drama, displayed in role-appropriate mansion rooms. Best news: The exhibition is included in regular admission ( www.biltmore.com).
Charleston’s jazzy January: Not content with the famous Spoletto USA Festival, Charleston is launching the Charleston International Jazz Festival ( www.charlestonjazzfestival.com) Jan. 22-25 at multiple venues. Given Spoletto’s track record, this could be a winner-in-the-making.
Gambling in Western North Carolina: Over the last 20 years, Cherokee morphed from a dowdy destination to a vibrant, high-profile magnet: Harrah’s Cherokee Casino brought gambling, sleek high-rise lodgings, great golfing and spa facilities. Now the savvy Western Band of the Cherokee is opening a casino in the Murphy area, an hour southwest and just two hours from Atlanta.
The Cherokee Valley River Casino Hotel will have 60,000 square feet of gaming space (1,200 slot machines, 40 to 50 table games) and a 300-room hotel. They’re looking at a late summer opening.
Bottom line: A new gaming destination reached by one of the most scenic drives in North Carolina (U.S. 74 westbound from Asheville). And when it opens, Cherokee will undoubtedly draw fewer Georgians: You’ll have more elbow room at Cherokee, and possibly better room rates in the area.
North America
Western South Dakota: The rugged Badlands have always attracted those who love old-fangled ways. Mount Rushmore ( www.nps.gov/moru) always awaits, but there’s more. The famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will celebrate its 75th anniversary Aug. 3-9 ( www.sturgismotorcyclerally.com), and the American Bus Association pegs the Annual Buffalo Roundup and Arts Festival, Sept. 25-27 in Custer State Park ( www.gfp.sd.gov/state-parks), as a top-100 winner. As long as “Deadwood” retains its legion of die-hard fans, the rootin’-tootin’ Wild West town that inspired it ( www.deadwood.com) will continue to draw visitors.
Toronto may seem less foreign or quaint than French-speaking Quebec City or Montreal, but Canada’s biggest city is incredibly cosmopolitan, cultured and diverse. It’s also hosting the 17th Pan American Games (July 10-26; www.toronto2015.org), with roughly 6,000 athletes from North and South America competing in 36 sports; the Parapan Am Games are Aug. 7-15. If you enjoy our Highland Games at Grandfather Mountain, know that Scots-settled eastern Ontario holds the Glengarry Highland Games July 31-Aug. 1 at Maxville – an hour east of Ottawa – and features the North American Pipe Band Championships ( www.glengarryhighlandgames.com).
Selma, Ala., roared from obscurity to infamy 50 years ago this March when civil rights activists organized a march from there to Montgomery, the state capital, in support of voter rights. Participants were attacked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by state troopers and white hooligans on “Bloody Sunday” and forced back. Martin Luther King Jr. then led a Selma-Montgomery march that attracted international attention and fostered passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The town, the bridge and the march route has become a historical attraction in recent years, and the new “Selma” movie will further amp up tourism there. Downtown, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute ( www.nvrmi.com) is blocks from the “Bloody Sunday” bridge.
Texas two-step: With the hookup of US Airways and Texas-based American Airlines, getting from here to the Texas Hill Country cities is easy, whether direct or through Dallas-Fort Worth. Big and busy San Antonio is just an hour by Interstate from funky Austin. Besides the Alamo and popular Riverwalk, San Antonio ( www.visitsanantonio.com) holds Six Flags Fiesta Texas amusement park, which in 2015 will debut Batman: The Ride. Music has put Austin on the tourism map, and its South by Southwest festival is March 13-22 (www.sxsw.com); the Euphoria Music Festival is April 10-12 ( www.euphoriafest.com), the Austin City Limits Festival is Oct. 2-4 and 9-11 ( www.aclfestival.com) and the Fun Fun Fun Fest is Nov. 7-9 ( www.funfunfunfest.com).
Chicago: The Windy City just might be the easiest big city in America to visit: You can get a cheap, direct flight there and – if you pack light – can get to the hotels and attractions ( www.choosechicago.com) without having to rent a car or hop a cab: Just ride the El. There’s a wide range of lodgings in the Loop, which puts you in the heart of shopping and near the lakefront’s string of great go-tos: the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium and Field Museum of Natural History. Throw in the restaurants and sites at Navy Pier ( www.navypier.com), now one of Chicago’s top attractions, and you’re set. Also: The Lollapalooza festival will be staged July31-Aug. 2 in Grant Park ( www.lollapalooza.com).
Overseas
Milan, Italy: Italy’s second-largest city is famous for its Renaissance cuture (da Vinci, Caravaggio, etc.), modern fashion culture (Armani, Versace, etc.), food and fun. 2015 will bring a bumper crop of visitors for a world’s fair May 5-Oct. 31. The theme of Expo 2015 ( www.expo2015.org/en) is ecological: “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.” One highlight will be a new show from Cirque du Soleil – “Allavita!” – staged in an open-air theater May 6-Aug. 23.
Rio de Janeiro: It hosted the World cup in 2014 year and will host the 2016 Summer Olympics… so why go now? The tourism infrastructure is upgraded but relatively idle in 2015; hotel and dining will be more affordable until the Olympics wave hits. This is a big reason the website Travelzoo picks Brazil as one of the best international destinations of the year.
Waterloo, Belgium: British Airways picks Belgium as its top 2015 destination, and it won’t be the first time Brits went there in large numbers: 2015 is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the history-changing match-up between Napoleon’s French legions the UK-led alliance of the emperor’s enemies. An array of bicentennial events are lined up and waterloo200.org details the happenings in the months wrapping around the June 18 commemoration. Waterloo is now a suburb of Brussels, there’s lots to do in the area. As many Waterloo-related events will be staged in London, you can always fly to England and get to Brussels by Chunnel and continental rail connections.
Cuba: This, of course, is the big unknown. Will it be officially OK and easier for more Americans to go? It’s hard to say now: The fine points still need to be worked out between the White House and Congress and between the U.S. and Cuba. If and when travel restrictions are eased, time-consuming red tape involving visas and prohibited items will remain. That said, going to Cuba now – an adventurous trip through a tropical Cold war time tunnel – will be an experience sure to disappear once Westernization arrives. That’s part of the challenge: There are no ATMS, transactions are in cash and the Internet has barely arrived.
Best thing to do now is your homework. Talk with Canadians who have vacationed there: They’ve never been prohibited from going to Cuba, and their advice will be more practical than anything written by a string-pulling American guidebook writer.
Wiltshire, England: Spending a week in London is no closer to “seeing England” than visiting new York or Walt Disney World is to experiencing America. If you haven’t been out and about in Britain, know that Wiltshire is a worthwhile baby step just 90 miles west of London. Swindon, closest to London and the biggest city in the shire, is a little larger than Fayetteville. Much of Wiltshire is rural, and the big tourist draw is the Salisbury Plain, home of famous, prehistoric Stonehenge ( www.stonehenge.co.uk) and its companion site, Avebury. The Wiltshire city of Salisbury – about the size of Hickory – is known for its medieval buildings and for having one of the original copies of the Magna Charta, which turns 800 this year: The signing of that document is considered a key step in the evolution of democratic government, and is being celebrated with concerts, ceremonies and medieval reenactments across Britain ( www.magnacarta800th.com). Runnymede, where King John signed it on June 15, 1215, is a tad west of London Heathrow Airport.
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