Asheville, North Carolina - Is This The Happiest City In The World?

Asheville, North Carolina boasts the biggest house in the United States, Biltmore House, on the Biltmore Estate to the south of the city. With its own indoor pool and bowling alley, this 250 room house was the work of the wealthy George Vanderbilt II. Completed at the end of the nineteenth century and originally built as a private residence, the house and adjacent gardens are now a top tourist attraction, not to be missed.

The citations for Asheville read like the blurb on a Happiness theme park brochure. How would you like to visit "The Happiest City For Women", or one of "The Best Places To Re-invent Your Life"? Well, if you would, this is the place for you. Frommers guide books rank it in the top seven places to live in America and in the top twelve places in the world that you should visit in your life.

With the city now boasting a population of 83,318, according to recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, it has been labeled one of the nation's top 25 arts destinations, by AmericanStyle magazine. Readers of this quality publication, devoted to art, craft, travel and interior design, also voted it number 1 in their list of the top 25 small cities in 2010. The city is proud of its Art Deco architecture, to be found the city hall and many other prominent buildings.

Asheville, North Carolina, is proud of its galleries - over 50 of them - that showcase every medium in the arts, crafts, music and more. As if to emphasize the city's devotion to art, one recent program has seen local artists in the fields of bronze, wrought iron and blown glass, involved in creating over 300 signs, directing visitors to around 90 local attractions.

Having more than its fair share of festivals, Asheville is a destination for musicians, artists and sports lovers from around the country. The annual 3-day Moogfest honors the memory of Bob Moog, inventor of the Moog Synthesizer, the instrument that changed the world of music in the sixties and seventies. Bob was a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA), for thirty years, until his death in 2005. UNCA was also the home of the Bulldogs basketball team whose player Kenny George was the tallest in the history of college basketball, at an incredible height of 7 feet 8 inches.

Not to be outdone by artists and sports fans, food connoisseurs are well catered for by the Foodtopian Society in Asheville. Foodtopia is a unique commitment to fresh, locally grown and produced food and they certainly have a great infrastructure in place here. With up to twenty tailgate markets in the area, supporting sustainable agriculture and the farm-to-table movement, you can sample these gastronomic delights in some of the 250 restaurants in the area.

Asheville, North Carolina has, not surprisingly, attracted celebrities from all walks of life, with one hotel having played host to ten presidents of the United States, from President Taft right through to President Obama. This same hotel also numbers The Great Houdini, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Gershwin and Henry Ford among its guests. If such luminaries as these can be attracted to Asheville, then you can rest assured you'll find it lives up to your expectations when you decide to pay a visit.