Abingdon, VA

A cozy casual kitchen one block from the Barter Theatre, where chef-owner Jack Barrow built a menu around simple, honest cooking that Abingdon residents actually return to rather than just visit once. Cracker-crusted trout, salmon and grits, parmesan-crusted catfish, Cuban sandwich — comfort food executed with care in a room that feels like it belongs to the neighborhood.

Abingdon's most storied dining room, operating since 1779 inside a stone building that has served as a tavern, a hospital, and a post office over the centuries. The menu blends upscale American and German-inspired dishes with an award-winning selection of beers, wines, and cocktails — and the low-ceilinged candlelit rooms make dinner feel like a genuine event rather than just a meal.

The most polished dinner spot on Abingdon's Main Street corridor, with a menu of upscale American plates — crab-crusted salmon, butternut squash soup, filet mignon — delivered in a warm room with good outdoor seating and a wine bar sensibility. It sits comfortably between The Tavern's formality and the casual options on the strip, and the kitchen takes its seasonal sourcing seriously.

Abingdon's current craft brewery, operating out of the same renovated icehouse space off Deadmore Street that anchored the local beer scene before them. Sweetbay opened in July 2023 producing lagers and ales with a well-crafted, approachable style — the taproom has a good indoor-outdoor flow, regular Sunday jazz, and food trucks rotating through the yard. It has become the social hub the town needed.

A lively Mexican and seafood kitchen on East Main Street that has quickly built a following for its shrimp tacos, tableside guacamole, and a salsa bar that lets you calibrate heat to your own tolerance. The interior is more inviting than the strip-mall exterior suggests, portions are generous, and the prices are reasonable — a solid and satisfying meal in a town where the dining options for Mexican food remain limited.

A small-batch coffee roaster and cafe in a historic 1886 building on East Main Street, where head roaster Zen Moon sources and roasts the beans on site and the kitchen turns out from-scratch southern breakfast plates — biscuits and sausage gravy, grits, homemade pop tarts — that are far better than the modest surroundings imply. Cyclists coming off the Creeper Trail and theater-goers starting the day converge here, and for good reason.

A 16-mile converted rail trail connecting Abingdon to Damascus through farmland, forest, and trestle bridges over mountain creeks — one of the most scenic rail-trail rides in the eastern United States. The surface is crushed gravel and the grade is gentle enough that this is comfortable for cyclists at almost any ability level. The trailhead is right in downtown Abingdon.

The legendary upper section of the Creeper Trail drops 17 miles from Whitetop Station at 3,600 feet down to Damascus — almost entirely downhill, crossing dozens of wooden trestle bridges above mountain streams and through dense spruce forest. Hurricane Helene tore through this stretch in September 2024, damaging 30 of the trail's 31 historic trestles, and the upper section is closed for reconstruction; the U.S. Forest Service has targeted a spring 2027 reopening.

Southwest Virginia's most dramatic hiking destination, with 25+ miles of trail through open highland balds at 5,000+ feet where more than 100 wild ponies roam freely. The Rhododendron Trail to Wilburn Ridge puts you among the ponies within a mile and a half from the Massie Gap parking lot, with views across the highest terrain in Virginia.

A hike to Virginia's highest point at 5,729 feet, reached via the Appalachian Trail from Grayson Highlands State Park. The summit is wooded and views are limited at the top, but the alpine-feel terrain approaching it — rocky balds, spruce forest, wild ponies — makes this one of the most distinctive walks in the Mid-Atlantic.

The lower section of the Creeper Trail — 7.5 miles from the Watauga trestle back to the Abingdon trailhead, mostly easy with gentle grades and pastoral scenery along creek bottomlands. It's the section closest to Abingdon and accessible without a shuttle, making it the go-to for a morning walk or jog that locals use regularly.

A paved multi-use greenway threading through Abingdon's parks and neighborhoods, connecting the historic downtown corridor to the town's green spaces along gentle terrain. Wide enough for cyclists, strollers, and walkers side by side, it's the everyday trail that locals use for morning runs and evening rides when they want pavement underfoot instead of the Creeper's gravel.

The main reason most visitors come to Abingdon and reason enough to visit on its own — the nation's longest-running professional Equity theater with a full season of classics, musicals, and new works on two stages. The intimate main house puts you close to the stage in a way that larger regional theaters can't replicate.

An annual late-July arts and crafts festival that has been running since 1948, filling downtown Abingdon with juried art, live music, vintage arts and crafts, history tours, and a scale that draws regional visitors from across the Appalachians. If you're anywhere in southwest Virginia in late July, Abingdon during the festival is the place to be.

Abingdon's live music and community gathering venue since opening in July 2023, housed in the same renovated icehouse off Deadmore Street that made this neighborhood a local social hub. Sunday jazz, rotating food trucks, and a laid-back indoor-outdoor space have made Sweetbay the natural anchor for an evening out — whether you're there for the beer or the band.

The William King Museum runs a robust calendar of lectures, studio workshops, family events, and opening receptions throughout the year that bring Abingdon's arts community together beyond the Barter and the Creeper Trail. It's the programmatic anchor of the Virginia Highlands arts scene.

The rocking-chair veranda of the Martha Washington Inn on West Main Street is the most civilized spot in Abingdon to sit still for a while — watching the streetscape, nursing a drink from the bar, and letting the town's unhurried pace recalibrate your nervous system. It's free to occupy whether you're a guest or not.

The longest-running professional Equity theater in the nation, founded in 1933 when Robert Porterfield let audiences pay their admission in vegetables, dairy, and livestock — 'With vegetables you cannot sell, you can buy a good laugh.' It has launched the careers of Gregory Peck, Patricia Neal, Ernest Borgnine, and dozens more. The Barter is the institution that defines Abingdon, and it's still producing world-class theater in the same historic building.

A Four-Star Historic Hotel of America in a Federal-style 1832 building that operated as an all-women's college before becoming Abingdon's grand hotel. The public spaces — parlors, dining room, veranda — are open to non-guests for a meal or a drink, and the architecture and period furnishings reward a slow walk through even if you're not staying.

Southwest Virginia's major regional art museum, housed in a striking contemporary building on the edge of Abingdon, with a permanent collection and rotating exhibitions that draw serious shows for a small-city institution. It's also the hub of the annual Virginia Highlands Festival and hosts programming year-round that makes it more than a one-visit destination.

One of the best-preserved antebellum downtowns in Virginia, with Main Street lined by 19th-century buildings housing galleries, independent shops, and restaurants in walking distance of each other. The Barter Theatre, the Martha Washington, and the Virginia Creeper Trailhead are all within a few blocks — Abingdon is small enough to cover on foot in an afternoon.

A working artists' collective in a restored 1870 train depot near the Virginia Creeper Trailhead, with studios open for visitors to watch artists at work in pottery, painting, textile, and jewelry. Abingdon's art scene revolves around the Barter and the William King Museum, but the Arts Depot is where you meet the makers.