Valerie
Los Angeles
I'm going to be in Charlotte next month and will be on a pretty tight budget. I'm looking for the best free and inexpensive things to check out! I love the outdoors, art, museums, you name it. Thanks!
For outdoors, the U.S. National Whitewater Center and Freedom Park are excellent choices.
The NoDa district is the artistic heart of Charlotte and there are frequent events such as music festivals and gallery crawls.
As far as museums, the Mint Museum UPTOWN and the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art are both good.
Other noteworthy attractions include Discovery Place and Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden (which admittedly is in Belmont, about 30 min West of Charlotte).
Checkout their web sites if you want to plan for hosted events and other fun stuff when you arrive:
http://www.bechtler.org/
http://www.discoveryplace.org/
http://usnwc.org/
http://www.mintmuseum.org/
http://www.dsbg.org/
http://www.noda.org/
Have fun in the Queen City! :)
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NoDa in Charlotte is awesome, so many great hole is the wall restaurants, I recommend Cabo Fish Taco. So good. It is one of the most popular art districts in the city. There are several music venues and art gallerys in this neaborhood. If you like coffee, try Smelly Cat Coffeehouse, also aaamazing. And if your lucky you might catch some incredibly talented street preformers. NoDa is just a great place to walk around, window shop and get a cheap bite to eat. well worth your time.
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Mickey