Shae and I are only a couple of weeks into our 6 weeks in Virginia, but it’s time to start planning our next state – West Virginia.
We’ll be getting there in mid-October in time for Bridge Day at the New River Gorge Bridge. We’re planning on spending about a month there before heading on to Tennessee to see out the year.
The other night I checked our spreadsheet of things to do in each state and noticed that our list for West Virginia was incredibly bare as it only had four items on it. I therefore did a little bit of research into fun things to do in West Virginia and added about a dozen more potential things to do.
Visiting in October and November should mean West Virginia will be especially beautiful due to all the fall colors. We’ll therefore enjoy going hiking and we’ll hopefully hit up some whitewater rafting too.
Where We’ll Stay
Shae and I only have one place booked so far – an Airbnb in Rainelle that we’ll be staying at for Bridge Day. It has several bedrooms, so Shae’s parents and a couple of our friends will be coming to stay with us as they’ll all be attending Bridge Day with us too.
We’ll likely stay also stay in Bridgeport as there’s a category 1 TownePlace Suites which means we’ll be able to get some good value from our Marriott points. That’s near a few places on our list of things to do, so that works out nicely.
Other than that though, I’m not entirely sure where we’ll be staying. Most of the other hotels and Airbnbs that we’ll book will depend on what there is to do in West Virginia.
Things To Do In West Virginia
Here’s what we currently have on our list of things to do in West Virginia:
- New River Gorge and Bridge Day
- Point Pleasant – Mothman stuff
- New Vrindaban Palace Of Gold
- Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
- Grandview State Park
- Blackwater Falls State Park
- Archive of the Afterlife: The National Museum of the Paranormal
- Suspension Bridge in Wheeling
- Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
- Berkeley Springs Castle
- George Washington’s Bathtub in Berkeley Springs
- Kenova’s Pumpkin House
- World’s Largest Teapot in Chester
- Hovatter’s Wildlife Zoo – feed camels, lemurs & more
- Summersville Lake
- Oglebay’s Winter Festival Of Lights
- Cass Scenic Railroad State Park for a Full Moon Hike on Nov 11
Your Suggestions
While that’s a good start, I’m sure there’s a ton of other fun things to do in West Virginia which is where you come in. Do you have any suggestions of things to do, great hiking, places to eat, etc. in West Virginia? If so, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll add them to our list.
A month in West Virginia sounds wonderful! I was going to recommend this wonderful resort in the mountains that my husband and I have been doing to for 20+ years….. but they don’t take pets. So I’ll think about other places to recommend. Pipestone State Park is really nice.
Have you been to Lexington, Virginia? Its a neat little town with two colleges and a Civil War cemetery. General Stonewall Jackson is buried there and if you go to see his grave, note that it will have lemons tossed onto it. Another charming small town is Staunton, I was interested in that there is another Woodrow Wilson house there, the house where he was born. I had asked the man in the office selling tickets if he could recommend a restaurant and he pulled out a list, “We have 27 restaurants in town and here are a couple within walking distance I can recommend.”
We haven’t been to Lexington, although it looks like it’s close to Natural Bridge that we were planning on visiting this week – if we have time we’ll head up there to check it out.
We passed Staunton on our way up to Roanoke, so we’ll have to check it out in the future 🙂
Dolly sods bare rock is beautiful, the mountain range has boreal forest that is more typical or higher latitudes, so it’s very unique! There are lots of good hikes around that area, but if you are not into hiking bare rock is drivable.
Seneca Rocks is another beautiful place with some good hiking.
Blackwater Falls is unique because of the color of the river (black) due to the bogs that feed the river. Davis WV is the closest town near the waterfall and has a delightful small town vibe with some mom and pop restaurants and some good folk live music on weekends. I recommend Hellbender Burritos!
Hawks Nest, another scenic place.
Tudors biscuit world. This is a fast food chain unique to WV, it is very greasy, however, you will never find it anywhere else and is worth a try.
Morgantown WV is where West Virginia University is and definitely is a college town, so it has lots of good bars and some breweries. Pies and Pints has the best pizza is WV (also located in Beckley WV and Charleston WV) best breweries are Mountain State (technically is brewed in Davis, but is served in Morgantown) and Morgantown Brewing Co.
Hope some of this was helpful!!!
That’s all super-helpful – thanks for taking the time to share all those ideas. I’ll add those to our list of things to do 🙂