Blue Ridge With Kids: What Actually Works

The Blue Ridge Scenic Railway is the obvious family day and it deserves the reputation. The train leaves from the depot in the middle of town, runs 26 miles there and back along the Toccoa River, and lays over for roughly two hours in McCaysville, Georgia and Copperhill, Tennessee, where the state line is painted across the road and every child in the party will want to stand with a foot in each state.

The decision that matters is which trip. The standard excursion is about four hours end to end. For children over about six that is a good day, particularly in an open-air car where there is wind and noise and things to look at. For toddlers it is a long time to be contained, and the shorter express that runs on selected dates without the layover is a better match.

Practical notes. Open-air seats are the fun ones and the cold ones; in autumn dress children as though they are sitting outside for two hours, because they are. Take snacks and water aboard. Use the lavatory before you board rather than after the train has started. And book autumn dates early, because leaf-season weekends sell out and there is no standby.

Mercier Orchards is the highest-value family hour in Fannin County. The farm has been in the same family since 1943 and grows more than forty apple varieties, and u-pick runs through the year by crop: strawberries in late spring, blueberries and blackberries in summer, peaches, then apples from late summer into autumn. Children who will not eat fruit at home eat it off the tree. The bakery and market run when the fields do not.

Two cautions. U-pick only opens when a crop is genuinely ready and closes when a field has been picked over, sometimes at short notice, so check what is open the week you go. And on an October Saturday the car park overflows and the turn-in backs up onto the highway. A weekday, or the first hour of the day, is a completely different visit.

For walking, keep it short and steep rather than long and flat. Fall Branch Falls off Stanley Creek Road gets you to a real waterfall in a walk most children can do, and a waterfall is a far better destination than a viewpoint when you are seven. The Aska Adventure Area between the lake and the river has loops that can be an hour or a morning, which means you can turn round without it being a defeat.

Save Long Creek Falls and anything involving Forest Service Road 42 for older children. Those approaches are long, unpaved and unforgiving of a change of mind.

Fannin County is wet. Annual rainfall here runs far above Atlanta's, summer thunderstorms build over the ridges most afternoons, and a washed-out day with children in a cabin needs a plan made in advance rather than at eleven in the morning.

Indoors, the county's options are few and honestly small. Expedition Bigfoot at Cherry Log, between Blue Ridge and Ellijay, is a sasquatch museum that is a great deal more fun than the description suggests and fills an hour comfortably. Blue Ridge Community Theater runs a real season of plays and musicals in town. Downtown Blue Ridge is two covered blocks of shops beside the depot, which is enough for an afternoon of sweets, a toy and a book. The train's enclosed carriages run in the rain.

After dark, the best family evening in the county costs almost nothing. The Swan Drive-In in Blue Ridge is a working drive-in cinema showing current releases, and it is close to ideal with young children: they can fall asleep in the back and you can still watch the film. It runs seasonally rather than year-round, so check what is showing.

Failing that, it is the fire pit. Marshmallows, a torch, and the fact that on a clear night a long way from streetlights the sky over these mountains is genuinely worth lying down for.