Hello, My husband and I are planning a trip to North Carolina or South whichever is best on 12-26-08 thru 12-31-08.We will be with our 6 yr old daughter.We would like to see snow, do some skiing and then then what ever else we could do with our 6yr old. We would like to stay in a cabin with beautiful views but close to restaurants and shopping we will be flying in and then renting a car. Pls help.Thanks.

Are you flying into to CLT ? Probably your best bet then on up to the Boone area. (About 2 hours from the Airport). I'd look at vrbo.com for rentals. We use them almost exclusively in the NC Mts. Try these for locales http://www.skinorthcarolina.com/ http://www.goskinc.com/ & www.visitnc.com

Your best bet for snow in NC is the Boone area. We stayed at Foscoe in a condo rented by VRBO. The complex had a great indoor poor and club house. Mast General store is worth seeing.

I'll be honest with you. Your chances of real snow during the week are less than 50/50. They do a good job with manmade snow at the resorts.

There are some shops and restaurants, but not really enough to entertain you for a week.

In lieu of skiing Boone is the home of App. St. so you could check out a basketball game, hit the Blue Ridge Parkway or visit some of our very good wineries.

Where are you flying into? What kind of shopping do you seek?

Palmetto Princess is right, your best bet for snow is Boone area or more specifically, Beech Mountain, which is the highest town east of the Mississippi (elevation over 5000'). I caught a beautiful snowy view from Beech Mountain on one of the SkiNc webcams today.

Agree that Boone area is best bet for snow in NC (don't even consider SC), but I'd want to be in the western part of that area for the best chance. Beech Mtn, Banner Elk are better bets than Boone or Blowing Rock for snow. The best weather site for that area is http://www.booneweather.com/. You may want to think about moving over the border to TN if you really need snow.

Of the "cute" mountain towns, Blowing Rock has the most restaurants/shopping and IMO the most charm (though that comes with crowds), Banner Elk is less so but still has a few shops and restaurants. Beech Mountain has a tiny villiage and is mainly a ski destination. Boone is, for the area, a fairly large college town, with its own downtown charm, but a good amount of ugly commercial areas too.

I live on the Tennessee side ... trust me, Beech Mtn/Banner Elk gets more snow, unless you find a cabin high up on Roan Mountain.

Beech Mountain, Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, Roan Mountain are all within 40 minutes of each other anyway.

I have never understood the appeal of Boone vs. the other small towns in the area.

But a cabin on Roan Mountain isn't a bad idea, but not as close to the ski areas which are guaranteed to have snow, even if it's just manmade.

BTW, this area of N.C. is not considered the Smoky Mountains. It's the North Carolina High Country. The Smokies are Cherokee/Maggie Valley/Gatlinburg area, two hours west.