Folk Art Center (Southern Highland Craft Guild)

The Blue Ridge Parkway's most-visited destination is not a view. It's a craft shop.

The Folk Art Center at milepost 382 draws a quarter of a million visitors a year — more than anywhere else on the 469-mile route. That's not an accident. The building opened in 1980 as a cooperative effort between the Southern Highland Craft Guild, the National Park Service, and the Appalachian Regional Commission, and what it houses is a living connection to the region's material culture: three galleries, a library, an auditorium, and Allanstand, founded in 1895 in Madison County and — so they say — the oldest craft shop in America.

What you buy here was made by a Guild member, all from Southern Appalachia. The Guild's permanent collection is on display — traditional and contemporary Appalachian craft, the work that survived and the work still being made. From March through December, Guild artisans demonstrate in the lobby. You can watch them work. You can ask questions. The gap between object and maker collapses.

Admission is free. The Center sits just off the Parkway near the Highway 70 intersection, about eight miles from downtown Asheville — close enough to feel connected to the city's craft economy, far enough that arriving requires intention. You come for the Parkway. You stop because the parking lot is full. You leave with something made within a day's drive of where you're standing.