Family-Friendly Fun in Asheville

Asheville, North Carolina, is filled with fun and adventurous things for the whole family! You can find outside fun from hiking to ropes courses, plus inside fun like brewery hopping and even a Pinball Museum. Below is our list of things to do in Asheville with kids, along with recommendations on where to stay in your RV.

Outdoor Activities

Blue Ridge Parkway

If nature is your scene, you will want to check out everything the Blue Ridge Parkway has to offer, including lots of great hikes. We always like to stop in the visitor center to ask the rangers for their recommendations, based on the weather and current conditions.

Here are our favorite places:

Looking Glass Falls: A beautiful waterfall that is right off of the road, so doesn't even take a hike to get to. If you are up for it, you can go down by the water's edge and do some exploring.

Skinny Dip Falls: Yes, it is actually called that! But don't worry, skinny dipping isn't allowed. It is a nice hike through the trees to the falls. You can even jump into the water from a cliff, if you want to!

Craggy Pinnacle Hike: A hike to an overlook that gives you a 360-degree view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The hike up was filled with unique trees and amazing views, too.

Sliding Rock: A big natural waterfall slide! You climb to the top and slide down the rock into a cool pool of water. Okay ... actually freezing cold water, but totally worth it. It is a little bit of a bumpy ride, but still a lot of fun.

Adventure Center

Asheville is known as being an outdoor city and the Adventure Center fits in perfectly with that. The ropes course is situated among the trees and is a fun way to get outside while getting a great workout in. They offer a variety of ropes courses and zip-lining options. A few of them are specific to younger kids, so our four-year-old was even able to try a ropes course and zip-lining.

Wildwater Pigeon Jeep Tour

A little outside of Asheville, but worth the drive, is the Wildwater Pigeon Jeep Tour. Our driver took us up and into the Smoky Mountains and down some roads that you could only maneuver with a 4x4 vehicle. It was fun to see a different side of the Smokys while having a local show us around and share stories about the area.

No Taste Like Home

On par with the farm-to-table theme of Asheville, at No Taste Like Home you can book a tour where a guide walks you around an area of Asheville to show you all the edible plants that are right there in front of you.

This was a great educational experience for our whole family. And to this day, we still talk about the plants that we tasted and point out the ones we learned about when we are on a hike. If you collect enough plants, you can take your finds to a local restaurant that will create a meal for you out of what you found for an additional charge. (Depending on the time of year, you could even find expensive and yummy mushrooms on your tour).

Indoor Activities

Biltmore Estate

The Biltmore is a HUGE house that you can visit - either by doing a traditional tour, a self-paced audio tour, or just walking through it. It is humongous and filled with so much history.

Once you are done with the house, be sure to save time to explore the grounds. The gardens are sensational. And a short drive away is the village, where you can get a free wine sample with your Biltmore ticket (grape juice for the kids!).

Pinball Museum

An actual working Pinball Museum! You pay one fee to get in and then you can play all the pinball games you want to - and there are a lot of them. There are some old school video games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, too.

Plan on spending a few hours to try out all of the fun pinball machines. They also have a small beverage and snack station, if you need a quick bite.

Breweries

There is no shortage of breweries in Asheville. Everything from cider breweries to ginger breweries to regular breweries. They have it all. Asheville definitely does beer right! They even have lots of dog-friendly spots, read more about those here.

Highland Brewery has tons of space for the kids to run outside and board games to play inside. Or if you want a full restaurant brewery, Asheville Brewing Company and Upcountry Brewery both offer full menus.

A few others we enjoyed were:

• Wedge Brewing Company
• Pisgah Brewing
• Hi-Wire Brewing Big Top
• Green Man Brewery

Sammies

Traveling with kids? You will want to be sure to set aside time to visit Sammies. They have delicious ice cream sandwiches made from fresh baked cookies and scrumptious ice cream. And never fear, it is in walking distance to a variety of breweries.

Where to Stay

Wilsons RV Park

This is a small RV park located on the river. It is right off the highway, so the noise can be annoying. But that means it is a pretty quick ride anywhere you want to go in Asheville or close by. It also has a bike trail that runs right through it and a huge park right down the road.

Bear Creek RV Park

Located up a hill, this park has decent-sized paved sites and a pool. Other than that, it didn't have much to offer. But it is worth it if you are looking for somewhere close to Asheville and everything going on there.