We visited Floyd in August 2021. Read about our first visit to Floyd in May 2021 here. We also visited Boone, NC on this trip.

Floyd is the coolest little mountain town (although it’s not our #1 absolute favorite little mountain town), especially on Friday nights in the summer when there’s a jamming bluegrass band on every downtown street corner.

Campground

Again, we stayed at Chantilly Farm, now known as Floyd Family Campground, and it was so great. The campground is expansive, scenic, peaceful, and about a ten-minute drive from downtown Floyd. If you have human children, it seems like a wonderful place to let them run wild while the grownups chill at the campsite. Don’t count on the internet, though, or maybe we’ve just had bad luck with it twice.

Eating

Last visit, we so thoroughly enjoyed Music Road Co‘s show at Dogtown Roadhouse that we knew we wanted to see another band play at Dogtown this visit. Welllll the band we got this time was, how should I say it, not very good. The pizza was tasty, though! We ate our pizza, had a beer or two, and skedaddled.

Lucky for us, it was Friday evening, so there was no shortage of other musical options (some with dancers too!) on the street outside, and inside at Floyd Country Store.

Saturday night we were back at Floyd Country Store to grab dinner, after striking out with the limited, very meat-heavy–but scrumptious-looking for those not traveling with non-meat eaters like poor J–menu at The Blind Pig (the Asian menu on the website that we were excited to sample is sadly no longer offered). We bought a bounty at the Country Store to take home to our picnic table: veggie chili, Brunswick stew, cornbread, collards, a cheddar biscuit (to die for), a cookie, and a mini key lime pie. YUM. Fast service, delicious food.

Drinking

We drank a couple cocktails in Floyd, repeating favorites from last visit. 5 Mile Mountain Distillery is such a cool spot, with live music and a laid-back locals vibe. The cocktails are interesting but you have to appreciate a moonshiney flavor, which we’re still working on.

Lush Lounge is a speakeasy, complete with a secret entrance and staff in ’20s costumes. The cocktails are creative and well-made (and a couple special barrel-aged drinks are e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e) and we enjoyed sitting at the bar and watching the bartendress work. It’s a popular spot on a Saturday, so go early! You can order food off the Blind Pig menu at Lush, if you like meaty meat dishes.

Hiking

Black Ridge Trail is a sweet little 3-mile loop about 10 minutes from Floyd, and 20 from the campground. The trail meanders through woods, meadows, and past mountain views. There’s a bit of road noise from the Blue Ridge Parkway, which you cross twice, but overall the hike was super pleasant and we only saw a couple other people on a Sunday morning. There’s a creek for your thirsty dog near the end of the hike, if you’re going clockwise, but we recommend going counter-clockwise to get the climb over with and save the big views for last.

Cycling

Last visit, we did a gorgeous and brutal and delightful 28-mile loop from downtown Floyd posted by a prolific local cyclist. We went back to his posted routes for something similar, but one that we could jump onto from the campground.

This 28-mile loop was also really hard and really fun, with lots of big climbs and fast descents. We didn’t get any big mountain views (the loop from our first trip gives you the same Blue Ridge Parkway overlook vistas you get on the Black Ridge Trail hike btw) but we got plenty of stunning farmland scenery.

Floyd is so fantastic and so close to home that you’ll be seeing it pop up a lot on AirstreamDog!