A New Yorker’s guide to an alt Asheville getaway

New York magazine’s website just published its “Five-Point Weekend Escape Plan” (which seems a little like six or seven or eight points) suggesting that visitors:
1) stay at the Grove Park Inn, the Princess Anne Hotel or Sweet Peas Hostel
2) eat at 12 Bones, Early Girl, Tupelo Honey and Chai Pani,
3) take in a concert at the Orange Peel or The Grey Eagle (and walk around the River Arts District)
4) drink some beer at Jack of the Wood (in particular its “handcrafted English Ales”)
5) catch the Friday night drum circle, and

before you depart, go on a hike, grab some coffee and a sandwich at Clingman’s Café, have lunch at Iron Horse Station, reserve a tub at Hot Springs Resort and Spa, and settle in at the Thirsty Monk.

Thanks to @WinBassett on Twitter for the heads-up about this article.

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes

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