Post-Hurricane Helene Updates: What's Open In Asheville?
So what IS open in Asheville right now? October is traditionally our area’s busiest month for visitors, and because of the widespread power, water, and road outages, even businesses that had no direct physical damage from the storm were still heavily impacted by their inability to open and operate. The good news is that many parts of WNC are now open and need visitors! In lots of areas, power and potable water are widely restored, and businesses, restaurants, inns, hotels, music venues, and more are open and will welcome your business.
Heavily impacted areas that are NOT fully up and running include Biltmore Village (though Biltmore itself IS open), the River Arts District (some businesses are coming back – check here for details!), Swannanoa, and some other outlying areas. Downtown Asheville, Hendersonville, Brevard, Weaverville, Waynesville, and more are all open!
Explore Asheville’s website has some amazing resources for folks planning to visit the area, and the main message is to plan your trip with heart, patience, and respect. Visit their site for more travel information, including area hikes that are open, a sample holiday itinerary, and more.
If you are not able to visit in person, a wonderful way to help is to do your holiday shopping online with businesses, artists, and makers who are local to our region. Here are some of our suggestions:
- Here is a crowd-sourced spreadsheet of local businesses that offer online shopping.
- Love Asheville From Afar is a list curated by Explore Asheville.
- Flood Back Art is a directory of local artists you can purchase from or donate to directly.
- The 2024 Asheville Holiday Gift Guide is another way to shop directly from many local businesses.
- Asheville Goods is a local woman-owned small business that puts together beautiful themed gift boxes full of items from local makers that can be shipped – you may have received one of these as a closing gift, or as a raffle prize at one of our events!
- Travel Guides Asheville’s founders have created a GoFundMe project that will help the community twofold. They will use all funds to buy gift cards from local businesses in the region, and those gift cards will be distributed to volunteers, military personnel, and families in need in the surrounding areas.
