A Local’s Guide to Charlotte’s Top Tourist Attractions – Charlotte Magazine

We travel to other cities—New York, Chicago, Seattle, Budapest—and scan the tourism brochures and Facebook pages for stuff to do: museums, parks, outdoor adventures, gigantic reflective beans. (Chicago.) Often, we don’t direct the same energy to the city where we live.

In the office one day, we began to take stock of how many Charlotte-area attractions we either hadn’t visited in years or never had. This had to be remedied. So we got out to a few of them to experience the under-heralded pleasures of Charlotte tourism, the better to appreciate our own giant reflective beans.

We zoomed on NASCAR tracks, scaled walls, traipsed among large, noisy, and very cool fowl, and experienced something new without even leaving the area. If you’ve missed out on some of these, maybe they’ll inspire a similar urge in you.

NASCAR Racing Experience

When I reach the front of the line, a man hands me a white disposable helmet sock to put on my head before he jams a roughly 5-pound silver helmet down over it. “Comfortable?” he asks.

“Not at all,” I reply.

“Perfect.”

A moment later, a kid who looks no older than 18 walks me to the passenger side of a blue stock car. Stock cars don’t have doors, so I hike my left leg up and through the window as instructed. In goes my other leg, my torso, and my bulky head, which smacks the window frame. Helmet works.

Riders and drivers suit up.

As a crew member leans in the window to strap my five-point harness, I turn my head with great effort to address the man in the driver’s seat. Josh is my driver—and a chaplain. Convenient!

NASCAR Racing Experience, operated by a Concord-based parent company called Driving 101, has sold these rides and drives in race cars since the late 1990s. Experiences range from $225 to just over $4,500 at 18 tracks throughout the country. But Charlotte Motor Speedway, with experiences available on select Saturdays and Sundays, is one of only two (the other: Daytona International Speedway in Florida) that can claim to be a home of NASCAR.

A car next to us takes off. Three to five cars run on this 1.5-mile oval track at a time. Some are driven by professionals like Josh. The others are driven by regular folks who’ve purchased the NASCAR Racing Experience driving package. All that’s required is a Class C driver’s license and a training video.

“So, how often do people actually crash out here?” I ask. 

“Oh, it’s rare,” Josh assures me. “These cars are engineered not to crash.”

Then Josh turns his head to look at me one more time. “And now,” he says as he shifts into first gear, “I’m going to show you what Godspeed feels like.” 

Before I can respond, the momentum forces my head back against the seat behind me. It clearly knocks the neurons in my brain around, because we’re already coming out of the first turn at around 100 mph by the time I corral my wits. The roar of the engine is deafening.

We’re still gaining speed as Josh guides the car over the double white line and onto the 24-degree bank. On the third and final lap, I cut my eyes over to the metal-framed odometer as it surges toward 200 mph. It feels like the car will flip at any moment, but also—this is fun.

The next thing I know, we’re back in place and idling. “Holy shit,” is all I manage to get out. Josh laughs, but I’m certain he’s praying silently for my redemption as I worm my way back out the window. – Tess Allen 

Queen Cleo, Photos by Herman Nicholson

Carolina Raptor Center

Cleo, true to her regal name, keeps her subjects waiting. A group of about 15 people has assembled on an unseasonably warm April afternoon for one of the Carolina Raptor Center’s “fly-bys,” exhibitions of one or more of the center’s 30 birds: eagles, owls, vultures, hawks, and more. Trainers escort the birds from their enclosures to a communal space where they flap, swoop, squawk, and sometimes approach visitors for what Hailey Patton, the trainer who’s leading the fly-by today, calls “that nose-to-beak experience.”

There’s a problem, though. Cleo—short for Cleopatra—is being a bit of a diva. She won’t come out. “She’s gotta put her lipstick on,” a woman observes. Finally, along with trainer Lacey Sharpe, she emerges—head held high, stride sure. She’s an Abyssinian ground hornbill, a turkey-sized African bird with a prominent beak, dark plumage, and—no kidding—eyelashes. (They’re actually fine feathers that help keep dust out of her eyes. Cleo shares an enclosure with another hornbill named Maybelline.)

“She’s got a really big, confident personality,” Hailey announces. Cleo demonstrates this by sprinting toward a paper Trader Joe’s bag filled with sticks, which the staff has prepared to encourage Cleo to forage. If she does, they’ll feed her worms as a reward. Cleo tears at the bag without mercy.

Tiara, a grey crowned crane

The Raptor Center’s hosted avian-human interactions like this since 1984, when the nonprofit moved from UNC Charlotte to Latta Nature Preserve in Huntersville. It’s beautiful land: 57 acres with a trail that meanders through Piedmont hardwood forest, in addition to a hospital that treats and rehabilitates sick and injured birds.

But the wooden enclosures and their chain-link fencing are obsolete, and the center wants new spaces for the birds and an amphitheater to replace the clearing where it holds fly-bys and other events. “Our demand is starting to outgrow our facilities,” says Erin Katzner, the president and CEO since 2022. The center planned to move to a new space behind Quest, the science education center that opened at Latta in 2020. But COVID and the death of longtime director Jim Warren two years ago delayed the project, Katzner says. The Raptor Center hopes to launch a new fundraising campaign soon.

The Raptor Center holds its “fly-bys” and other events in a central clearing it wants to replace with an amphitheater.

Cleo may be frustrated by the delay. Whatever the reason, she’s not in the mood to perform. After a few swoops from covered perch to perch, she flies back to her crib. “We give our birds a lot of choice and control,” Hailey explains. “So if Cleo says, ‘I don’t really feel like participating today,’ that’s totally fine. We’ll just try again tomorrow.” – Greg Lacour

Taylor’s daughter watches rafters on the world’s largest artificial whitewater river

US National Whitewater Center

We hear the rapids before we see them. As my daughter and I descend the stairs just past the entrance, the artificial river comes into focus. Individual kayakers and eight-person rafts take on the rushing water. To our right, a group of 20-somethings stretches out on a waterproof picnic blanket and sips beers from the riverside restaurant, the Pump House Biergarten. We hear a swoosh overhead as they shift their gaze toward the sky and applaud. A friend of theirs zip lines between the trees and over the rapids at about 30 mph. 

I’ve arrived at the U.S. National Whitewater Center with a backpack full of sunscreen, hand sanitizer, baby wipes, Band-Aids, a change of clothes, and two empty water bottles. No outside food or beverages are allowed, but there are plenty of water fountains where we can fill up. I’ve already completed waivers assuming all risk for any fractures, dislocations, and blunt force trauma we might incur on this outdoor adventure. With our bladders empty and our wristbands snug, I’m ready to show my 8-year-old the cool, spontaneous mom I always knew I’d be.

My daughter weighs 60 pounds soaking wet, which rules out whitewater rafting and zip lines, so we opt for the outdoor rock-climbing complex. The shaded wall is for beginner and intermediate climbers, and the more advanced “spire” reaches 46 feet. The shorter wall behind us is for bouldering, which doesn’t require ropes or harnesses. My daughter wants to start with the climbing wall. I want to believe the shredded rubber chunks on the ground will soften my fall.

A muscled young man who probably wasn’t born until after the second Bush administration fits me with a crotch strap and explains how the ropes keep us from falling. The six different routes range from easy to difficult. My daughter starts with Route 3, grabs the footholds with ease, and quickly pulls herself to the top. Then she leans back and just, like, trusts that the rope will keep her from falling to her death. She lines up to tackle Route 4.

Courtesy, Whitewater

I start with Route 1 and make it about 80% of the way up before I run out of footholds that will accommodate my adult-sized feet. I close my eyes, lean back, and, to my relief, I do not land on the ground with a thud. By the time I decide I’m ready for Route 2, my daughter is already in line with two men three times her size, waiting to conquer Route 6. She makes it to the top, barely breaking a sweat. I get three-quarters of the way up Route 2 before I surrender. 

She wants to do bouldering next. My arms are on fire, and my palms are starting to blister, but I am Fun Mom today, damn it! I can hang! And if these blisters slow my roll, I totally have extra Band-Aids in my backpack.

We boulder on.  – Taylor Bowler 

More Options on the Staycation Circuit 

Carowinds: The Charlotte area’s locus of summer fun, concerts, and motion sickness-inducing rides since 1973. 14523 Carowinds Blvd.

Photo by Logan Cyrus

The Billy Graham Library: A 40,000-square-foot tribute to the life and legacy of the late evangelist, for decades Charlotte’s most famous native. 4330 Westmont Drive

UNC Charlotte and Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens: Our area is blessed with a pair of gardens with exotic plants in serene environments. The 10-acre UNCC Botanical Gardens hosts desert and carnivorous (!) plants and “a kaleidoscope of tropical ferns, vines, flowers, and shrubs.” The Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens stretch over 400 acres, which include six miles of trails.

UNCC Botanical Gardens, Photo by Logan Cyrus

Discovery Place: A four-site complex where people can immerse themselves in cool science stuff: Discovery Place Science, the interactive museum uptown; kid-tailored centers in Huntersville and Rockingham; and Discovery Place Nature, a museum and outdoor space next to Freedom Park that closed for extensive renovations in January and is expected to reopen in 2026.

Camp North End: A century-old former Ford automobile factory and World War II quartermaster depot turned into an adaptive reuse site for offices (including Charlotte magazine’s), eateries, shops, concerts, and other events.
300 Camp Road

Sullenberger Aviation Museum: The former Carolinas Aviation Museum reopened on June 1 after a $31 million renovation and a new name. Capt. C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger famously and safely landed Charlotte-bound US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. The refurbished museum retains its collection of vintage civilian and military aircraft, memorabilia, and the Airbus A320 that Sully piloted that day. 4108 Minuteman Way

Levine Center for the Arts: The four-museum complex, finished in 2010, turned a section of the city center into a showcase for the arts, cultural events, concerts, and more.