Merchants Millpond & the Dismal Swamp — Cypress Water, Spanish Moss & the Great Canal

In the far northeastern corner of North Carolina, two of the state's most otherworldly wetlands sit within an easy drive of each other — a black-water world of cypress, tupelo, and Spanish moss that feels more like the Deep South than the Piedmont. Day one is spent at Merchants Millpond State Park, where an enchanted, mirror-still millpond studded with bald cypress and hung with moss is best explored by canoe, gliding through drowned forest past basking turtles and, if you're lucky, a river otter. Day two crosses into the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp at Dismal Swamp State Park, walking the boardwalks and the towpath of the historic Dismal Swamp Canal — the oldest continually operating artificial waterway in the country, surveyed in part by George Washington. Nights are spent in the small waterfront city of Elizabeth City or nearby South Mills. It is a slow, atmospheric weekend of paddle and boardwalk in a landscape unlike anywhere else in the state.