New Bern NC is Now One of Our Favorites! Bears, History, Water & Great Food! What More is Needed!

We have lived in NC for almost two decades but had never visited New Bern until late last year. With Desi's medical issues, we are sticking close to home and are visiting places that we have had on our "to visit" list that just never happened!

After visiting New Bern we were blown away by how much we enjoyed this little town! We have visited bigger waterfront cities such as Wilmington, NC, Charleston, SC and Savannah, Ga and enjoyed them all. New Bern is like a miniature version of these larger cities but crammed with things to do. If you enjoy history, historical buildings, great architecture, great food and shopping and spending some time enjoying the water - we think you will enjoy New Bern as well!

During our time here, we stayed at the New Bern KOA which is a 10 minute ride from the city. The campground is conveniently located for touring not only New Bern but we also visited the towns of Beaufort, Morehead City, Cape Lookout and Fort Macon State Park. All of these are easily done in a day from New Bern. Plus, you can take a ferry from Cape Lookout to see the wild horses! We didn't do that on this trip as was a bit too cold for open water and we were not dressed for it haha.

In New Bern, we visited Tryon Palace which was the Governor's mansion when New Bern was the state capitol (before Raleigh). The full tour, which includes a narrated tour of the main house, was $20 plus tax. This also allows you to enjoy the gardens and the outer buildings at your leisure. Unfortunately, no part of Tryon Palace is dog friendly so only one of us could do the tour at a time. Overall, it took about 2 hours and we felt it was worth the $20! The tickets are purchased at the NC HIstory Center about 2 blocks away. There are also exhibits to explore here as well.

And while at the History Center, we took advantage of their cafe - Lawsons on the Creek which overlooks the water. The food was amazing - especially the Key Lime cheesecake! We didn't have a bad meal while in this town though. We also had some delicious seafood at Persimmons Waterfront (fish and chips) and in historic downtown - Morgans Tavern and Grill (fried shrimp). All of these places allowed Desi on the patios.

And finally, we loved driving and walking around the downtown looking for bears (the ceramic kind haha), looking at the old buildings (some built in the 1700's), doing some shopping and of course, visiting the birth place of Pepsi Cola where a soda is still 75 cents! We felt the town was big enough to easily spend a day (or two!) walking, shopping and eating our way around.

We will definitely be going back here and joins the towns of Greenville, SC and Williamsburg, Va as our favorite camping spots in the area.

We hope you enjoy the video. We are currently finishing up our review of the KOA and we are going to do a short video on Beaufort and Fort Macon State Park in the coming weeks.

Music by Epidemic Sound - www.epidemicsound.com

*****This video is for entertainment purposes only as we are not RV experts. We are sharing our thoughts, modifications and ideas based on our experiences but we always recommend doing your own research, and coming to your own conclusions on your camping and RV needs and modifications!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction
0:19 - Tryon Palace and the NC History Center
2:00 - Historical District
2:55 - Waterfront Parks
3:30 - The Bears!
3:58 - Birth of Pepsi
4:17 - Amazing Restaurants
5:14 - Shopping
5:44 - Campground & Wrap Up

Thanks for watching and as always - Happy Camping!