North Carolina is a traveler’s dream, from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks’ historic lighthouses, wild  horses, and charming fishing villages; from battlegrounds of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars to the “heart of motorsports”; from rolling wine country and golf courses to stately plantations and rustic settlements.  Whether you travel North Carolina for its historic treasures or natural beauty, this handy guide will help you find the Old North State’s most spectacular sites and secret treasures.  The book charts weekend adventures and day trips along back roads and scenic routes, into the state’s many mist-shrouded mountains--the Black, the Blue Ridge, and the Great Smokies--and down to its ever-changing shores.  Sumptuously illustrated, with maps and all manner of interesting detail, Backroads of North Carolina is a page-by-page pleasure, as well as a passport to the more off-beat delights of the Tar Heel State.