Visiting Hendersonville, NC with Kids

A few years ago we took our boys to the North Carolina mountains for the first time. You can read about our adventures in Boone/Blowing Rock
NC and our visit to Tweetsie Railroad.

We all had a wonderful time and the kids fell in love with the mountains so we planned our spring break trip to visit more of the North Carolina mountains. This time we visited Hendersonville, North Carolina. Hendersonville is located south of the popular tourist destination of Asheville. One day we will take the kids to Asheville but for this trip, we were looking for a more secluded and off quieter trip so we settled on Hendersonville. The quaint town of Hendersonville has all the charm you might expect from a mountain town but also all of the amenities you need to have a comfortable vacation.

Where We Stayed

We rented a wonderful Airbnb in Hendersonville, NC that was close to town but also had an amazing yard for the kids and our dog. We loved our Airbnb, it was comfortable for our family of 6 and allowed us to relax and appreciated a slower pace of life without having to leave the property. We almost always choose to stay in a vacation rental over a hotel for our larger family because we can get some space for about the same price (sometimes even cheaper).

What We Did

The purpose of this vacation was to relax and we were able to relax very easily at our gorgeous Airbnb. The kids absolutely adored the backyard tree house and swings so much so that it was hard to get them to stop playing. We did manage to drag ourselves away one day to explore downtown Hendersonville. Downtown Hendersonville is such a cute place with many local shops and restaurants. We bought some gifts and old fashion candy from Mast General Store, ate ice cream from Kilwins and Joe bought a few local beers from the Blue Door Bottleshop. On another day we drove to Asheville to visit the Western North Carolina Nature Center. We got free admission to the Nature Center thanks to our NC Zoo membership. At the WNC Nature Center, we saw many native NC animals and a few other exotic rescued animals they take care of on-site. The kids loved seeing the animals and playing at the nature play areas dotted throughout the park. We also hike to Triple Falls in Dupont State Forest, it was a moderate hike with a decent incline but totally doable with kids. We hoped to visit a few more waterfalls in Dupont State Forest but Abel hurt his ankle playing in a tree so we only got to visit one waterfall on our hiking day, but it was still a fun trip.

What We Ate

Because we had such a great kitchen in our Airbnb we cooked several meals at home but we did many get to eat out or get take out a few times during our stay. We order pizza from Pi Squared, got takeout from Papas and Beers, and at outside at HenDough. I think our favorite restaurant we ate at was HenDough, we all loved the chicken.