Over the last six months the Visitors Bureau team has been working on a project that we can now share with you! For a few years now, we have been an Outdoor NC partner with the state tourism office (Visit NC).
According to Visit NC, “North Carolina is beautiful, from the 6,000-foot peaks on the western border to the 100-foot sand dunes on the East Coast. It’s no wonder approximately 43 million people visit our state every year. To help communities mitigate the impact of all that attention, Visit NC is championing destination stewardship programming as part of the Outdoor NC initiative.”
The program “balances the quality of experiences for visitors with the well-being of residents while conserving our natural and cultural assets. We work with partners across the state to provide resources to raise awareness, activate projects and celebrate successful stewardship efforts which preserve our beloved outdoor spaces for generations to come.”
Outdoor NC has evolved each year and continues to provide destination partners with tools and guidelines for building and promoting accessible and responsible recreation tourism. But in 2024, the state wanted to really upgrade and reenergize the program.
You can learn more about the history of the program and the beginnings of this project in our blog from a few months ago: Outdoor NC Alliance Designated Trail Town Program. This blog covers the Trail Town Program goals, the Trail Town Stewardship Program, and how we’ve been putting the program into practice here in JoCo.
What is the Trail Town Guide?
The Bureau’s history with Outdoor NC paired with our hard work the first half of this year to improve our accessibility and responsibility messaging have culminated in our inclusion in the state’s new Trail Town Guide.
Be among the first to see the new guide and prepare for your next adventure!
The Trail Town Guide highlights and celebrates 15 selected destinations across the state with beautiful trails and a commitment to responsible travel and outdoor recreation. The state selected Smithfield to anchor the area, as the guide is themed around trail towns; however, the two-page spread includes Benson, Four Oaks, and Clayton and covers recreational assets throughout the county.
Wit Tuttell, Executive Director of Visit NC, commends the 15 destination partners for connecting visitors and residents to experiences that reflect a strong sense of place. “With the guide, trip planners will learn that more than the ocean makes our coast memorable, more than rivers and roads wind through the Piedmont, and more than peaks reward mountain getaways,” Tuttell said. “The Trail Town Guide also underscores the strides destinations have made toward making the experience accessible to anyone who wants to engage with history and culture as well as the outdoors.
Visit NC plans to promote the guide to outdoor enthusiasts considering travel to the state and to visitors already in the market looking for regional activities. Plans to market the guide include paid efforts as well as social, digital, and media efforts. The guide is currently in digital-only format, but may become a printed piece at a later date.
JoCo’s Future as a Trails Crossroads
As a Trail Town partner it is the Bureau’s job, in conjunction with our recreation partners, to continue to communicate with visitors where and how people of all abilities can explore and experience nature responsibly. The Bureau also continues its work to champion growing trail infrastructure through our work with the county and individual towns.
Both state and national trails converge in JoCo, which is home to greenways and trails that make up the East Coast Greenway (ECG), a trail that stretches over 3,000 miles from Maine to Florida, and the Mountains to Sea Trail (MST), which stretches 1,117 miles west to east across North Carolina. In addition, the Neuse River provides an optional means of transportation as a blueway, bisecting the county.
Adrian O’Neal, with the county’s Parks and Open Space Department, says they have been hard at work “selecting an engineering/construction firm for Phase 1 of the Johnston County Regional Park, which when finished will have over 4 miles of natural and paved trails. We’re making headway on the Wilson's Mills Greenway project, which will be a 2-mile section of the Neuse River Trail. This will be funded primarily by NCDOT's Carbon Reduction Program (CRP) and Complete the Trail (CTP) funds from East Coast Greenway Alliance. We’re working on finding funding for the Rose Dairy Property in Smithfield with Triangle Land Conservancy; this property will also host a section of the Neuse River Trail, which is part of the state-designated Mountain to Sea Trail.”
Thanks to the tireless efforts of state and local officials, western Johnston County is now tied into a larger trail network that reaches into the Raleigh and Durham areas - a continuous trail for over 70 miles. Johnston County is committed to the future of trails with plans in the works to link and extend existing greenways in the county, like the Neuse River Trail, so that hikers and cyclists can traverse the county without getting on a roadway.
Said O’Neal, “all this to say, the county is excited to see these trail and park opportunities emerge and evolve. We are working tirelessly to acquire more funding to complete trail planning documents such as the Smithfield to Benson East Coast Greenway Feasibility Study and the Comprehensive Trails & Greenways Master Plan. These plans will guide the future of trails in Johnston County and will create more opportunities for engaging all current and future residents and visitors to get outside."
Get outside on trails from Clayton to Bentonville to explore, recreate, and discover what lies just around the bend and just beyond our exits in JoCo!
