After a few days of travel, we finally made it down to our first destination: Raleigh, North Carolina!
Raleigh is quite the pleasant area to visit, We stayed in some beautiful campgrounds and got to explore the city and surrounding suburbs for a couple weeks.
To read about our trip down check out RV Diaries Pt 1: Drive Down to Raleigh
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Exploring Raleigh
For a couple of people from New York, Raleigh feels more like a densely populated area than an actual city. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just doesn’t have the same vibe as say New York City.
We went into Raleigh in the morning and had breakfast at First Watch, one of our favorite southern breakfast chains. Whenever there’s a First Watch in the area, we usually eat there at least once since we don’t have the restaurant back in New York.
Then we made our way to the first stop of the day: Village District.
Raleigh Village District
It was a bit of a dreary day with rain on and off, so we couldn’t do too much walking, but we managed to meander around the village district for a couple of hours.
The Village District was a cute outdoor mall area with a bunch of different shops to walk around. I ended up buying a really cool pair of Goodr sunglasses from an outdoor shop and Claudio got a new pair of sneakers from a running shop. We made out like bandits.
The shops themselves are situated like big squares, so we just walked around each square and peeked in the windows. I do love window shopping, don’t you?
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
Our soggy jackets were begging for an indoor attraction, so our next stop was the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The museum is itself is free and relies on donations for funds.
Unfortunately on this rainy day, everyone else had the same idea as us, because it was quite busy there. But we made the most of it and explored the museum and its many exhibits. My favorite was the dinosaurs. I am secretly a child.
Quail Ridge Bookstore
Whenever we visit an area, I immediately search if there are any indie bookstores and we were in luck because Quail Ridge Books is an absolute gem! The inside is bright red without being obnoxious about it and there are beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings and quotes on the walls.
They did not disappoint with their lovely selection of books and
displays. I loved perusing through the books about books section, the blind date with a book display and the herbs and foraging books. With no intentions of buying, the store sucked me in and I left with a beautiful copy of Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Plants.
Cinnaholic
Our last stop on our way back to our campsite after a day of exploring was Cinnaholic! It’s this franchise that sells custom cinnamon rolls. All their food is 100% plant-based which means I get to eat it, yay! We loved all the fruity cinnamon rolls they had on the menu. We ended up trying strawberry shortcake and strawberry cheesecake cinnamon rolls. You get to eat them nice and hot. That ooey gooey icing is to die for.
We actually bought a couple and froze them so we could have them later on in our travels.
Jordan Lake Campgrounds
During our Raleigh stay, we camped at three different campgrounds in the Jordan Lake area. This was our first time lakeside camping and we can definitely see the appeal. Quiet, breezy, and beautiful with the sound of water and if you’re lucky views of the sunset or sunrise.
I would recommend staying at Jordan Lake campgrounds if you want a quiet, affordable place to stay in the Raleigh area. Make sure you RV camp though, because the bathrooms are terrifying! There was a wolf spider in the ladies room at one of the campgrounds. I could not run out of there fast enough.
If you want to see all my campground reviews, check out my profile on Campendium.
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