Raleigh, NC

Free museums, oak trees, and a food scene that snuck up on everyone.

Raleigh has five free Smithsonian-affiliated museums downtown, including the excellent North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the NC Museum of Art (free, with a 164-acre outdoor park). The food scene — especially along Person Street and in downtown Durham, 20 minutes away — has quietly become one of the best in the South. Oak-lined neighborhoods, no traffic by big-city standards. NC Museum of Art's outdoor park trail is 164 acres of sculpture, meadows, and forest — free, open dawn to dusk. Best running trail in the Triangle and almost nobody from out of town knows it exists.

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