North Carolina Trails

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) stretches 1,175 miles across North Carolina. From Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smokey Mountains to Jockey’s Ridge on the Outer Banks, the trail traces the diversity that is North Carolina. Goldsboro is a proud trail community in the Neuse River Route portion of the MST. The trail portion that makes its way through Goldsboro-Wayne County is extra special because you can choose to hike or paddle it! Although the land portion of the MST in our area doesn’t fully connect yet, use this map to hike several sections that are already open. If you’re eager to trek the MST across North Carolina, you can pick up a paddle and cruise the Neuse as part of your 1,175 mile journey.

NCBS has designed a barbecue trail from Eastern North Carolina to Tennessee. The trail will meander across the state with stops at 20 NCBS Historic Barbecue Pits. These pits were carefully and selectively chosen by the NCBS board as representatives of the distinctive methods and barbecue cooking styles that have made North Carolina the Barbecue Capital of the World. Each NCBS Historic Barbecue Pit still cooks the old fashioned pit cooked method. And each NCBS Historic Barbecue Pit will proudly display a specially designed emblem depicting old style barbecue cooking that is part of the tradition, heritage and culture that NCBS seeks to preserve.

African American Music Trails is an exploration of the long and rich heritage of African American music in Eastern North Carolina. The abundance of this music and its musicians is one of the state’s best kept secrets. Funk, blues, jazz, and gospel in Kinston, Tarboro, Wilson and everywhere in between.

Interviews with more than 90 musicians uncovered an exciting world of music, especially jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, gospel, blues, church music, rap, marching bands and beach music in the counties of Edgecombe, Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Nash Pitt, Wayne and Wilson.

North Carolina. An abundant state for birding. Home to over 440 bird species, and a vast community of outdoor enthusiasts, nature appreciators, and those who enjoy bird watching. 

The North Carolina Birding Trail serves as a driving trail to link birders and nature-based tourists with great birding sites across the state and the local communities in which they are found.

Civil War Trails® has been working with communities since 1994 to share their stories and connect visitors with small towns and big stories across a network that now spans six states. Travelers look to Trails to put them in the footsteps of the generals, soldiers, citizens, and the enslaved who found themselves in the midst of this Civil War.

Civil War Trails began with a group of historians whose efforts linked together the sites of Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Petersburg to his surrender at Appomattox. Today the program guides visitors to more than 1,200 sites, over 700 of which we are proud to interpret to the public for the first time.

Each and every site on the Trail is generated at the grass roots level, where local interest begins our process. When communities approach Civil War Trails, we start our work by bringing in local historians and descendants. This community-driven approach allows us to tell history and share stories that oftentimes have not been heard before. This approach allows us to interpret—not commemorate or memorialize—the events, people, and places of the most pivotal time in our nation’s history.