Start from 22 curated places around Abingdon, VA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
128 Pecan
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.
The Tavern
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.
Trails & outdoors
Virginia Creeper Trail (Abingdon to Damascus)
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.
Virginia Creeper Trail (Whitetop to Damascus)
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.
Things to do
Barter Theatre
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.
Virginia Highlands Festival
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.
Landmarks & sights
Barter Theatre
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.
The Martha Washington Inn & Spa
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.