If you want within walking distance of Franklin Street, stay at the Carolina Inn. If you're going to be there on a home football game weekend, though, forget it.
My favorite restaurant/bar is Spanky's (it's one of the few still there since I was a college student there 20 years ago).
There are some cute shops on Franklin Street but not enough to keep you busy for a few days. There's a pretty lousy mall but you need a car (or you can take public transportation) to get there.
The campus is beautiful and it's nice to walk around. The student store has a decent book store if you like browsing.
Check the unc.edu website to find any cultural events that might be happening while you are there.
Pam B.

First, Chapel Hill is not a city. It's non-student population is about 40,000. It's a smallish college town, within about 20 min. of Durham (which is larger but less "amenable" in many ways) and Raleigh (state capital, but still far from very metropolitan).

The Carolina Inn is a lovely, very well appointed inn that is incredibly convenient to everything (http://www.carolinainn.com/) , but as Pam rightly points out, if you are here for a football game at home, you don't have a prayer of getting a room for Fri. or Sat.. I've checked the schedule and Oct. 12 is the only home game, so maybe you will be able to avoid that weekend.

The Carolina Inn is, as it happens, right across from part of "Fraternity Row," so even on non-football weekends, it can get lively. But my guess is that none of the rooms is really affected by night noise, given the layout of the inn.

Unfortunately, you don't have any other options at all, good or otherwise, downtown, but about 1.5-2.0 miles to the east is the Siena. It is a very lovely, "Tuscan-style" hotel. http://www.aaacarolinas.com/Travel_New/hotels/sienna_hotel.htm Our buses are free (!) and you may be able to hop a bus to downtown and back from near the hotel. It's also located near some stores and restaurants (Pam's reference to the "lousy" mall), although you have to cross Franklin St., which is 5 lanes at that point, to get there.

Both hotels have restaurants that are at the top of local quality lists (and have exchanged chefs)--not quite 3-star by European standards, but 4 star for here.

There are also chain motels dotted around the outskirts of the town that are quite respectable, but you really would need a car (you may anyway, but you might be able to rent one locally from Enterprise or others that have offices in the area, AWAY from the airport is cheaper). (Car rentals are cheap here to begin with, though.)

Otherwise, downtown restaurants I like are 411 West, Top O'the Hill, Vespa or Valentino's(for Italian) and... well, they are all clustered together and you'll have a tough time not finding places to eat. There are a couple of places that have long local traditions, like the Rathskeller and Mamma Dip's, but local cuisine may seem very very heavy to you.

For background on the area, you could start with the "official" websites: http://www.ci.chapel-hill.nc.us or http://www.chapelhillcarrboro.org/

but I'm reasonably sure that several of the local Fodorites will have more to tell you about the area.

Please let us know if your plans to relocate here firm up and I'm sure we'll be able to offer more help.

Enjoy the weekend!

TTT - anyone else? Tracy, when are you coming?