Charlotte Area Attractions

In the past decade or so, Charlotte has been sprouting skyscrapers, including the 40-story, trapezoidal steel-and-glass tower of the Bank of America Plaza and the stunning 46-story Hearst Tower. The city has attracted and taken to heart a professional football team, the Carolina Panthers. At present here's not much here for the casual tourist, but business travelers are certainly coming to town in droves.

Discovery Place
301 North tyron Street • Charlotte, NC • 704.372.6261 • 800.935.0553
Discovery Place is one of the top hands-on science and technology museums in the region. This uptown center features such permanent exhibits as a tropical rain forest and aquarium. There's also an OMNIMAX theater. The static-electricity demonstration, which literally makes your hair stand on end, is a perennial favorite. Temporary exhibits on loan from other science centers keep the place forever changing.

Mint Museum of Art
2730 Randolf Road • Charlotte, NC • 704.337.2000
With the recently added Dalton Wing, this stately museum displays a fine survey of European and American art, as well as the internationally recognized Delhom Collection of porcelain and pottery. Also featured are pre-Columbian art, contemporary American prints, African objects, vast collections of costumes and antique maps, and gold coins originally minted at the facility. New galleries exhibit studio glass and pottery from North Carolina studios. An admission ticket also gains you admittance to the Mint Museum of Craft & Design.

Wing Haven Gardens & Bird Sanctuary
248 Ridgewood Avenue • Charlotte, NC • 704.331.0664
Since 1927, one of Charlotte's special attractions, created by Elizabeth and Edwin Clarkson, has been a 3-acre enclosed area in the heart of a residential neighborhood. Mrs. Clarkson was known as the city's "bird lady." Some 142 winged species have been sighted in the walled garden, which was once a bare clay field. Birders and garden lovers will have a field day as they browse through the Upper, Lower, Main, Wild, Herb, and Rose gardens. The gardens are at their most splendid in the spring, when birds are returning from their winter migration. A bulletin board tells you which birds are around at the moment.

Home > Charlotte Attractions