Living the Andy Griffith Life

It only took us two years to finally make good on our teenager’s birthday request to spend time in downtown Mount Airy, better known to Andy Griffith fans as Mayberry. He loves the shows and, after a disappointing attempt to stop a couple of years ago late on a Saturday, only to find the town closed for the day, and weekend. This time, we planned better, and it didn’t disappoint! Our goal was to do this day for $100 or less…not including the camping.

We booked a couple of nights at the Mayberry Campground, just outside of town. Reservation by phone was quick and easy, and they do have discounts available, so be sure to ask. The campground is on an old farm. It’s spacious with a camp store, fishing ponds and lots of areas to gather.

Mount Airy’s tourism website has several ideas for what to do, based on how much time you have, so we opted for the one day itinerary as a starting point and modified based on our goals, but there are others to choose from.

We had planned to drive into town and bike around, but it was slated to be a rainy day, so we drove and walked in the various areas. We started at Wally’s Service Station to explore the jail, courthouse, station and several other replicas they’ve created. I also grabbed a few postcards at the shop before I could forget! If you want to get the tour of town in the police car, this is where you can find them, or just pose for pictures like we did! $FREE

Next up, we headed into town and parked at the playhouse to check out the TVLand statue and the Andy Griffith Museum. He grew up in this town and there are many collections and items on display. The museum does have an admission fee. $32 for 3 of us

We skipped the Siamese Twins museum since we were hungry and, using the guide as a reference, headed over to Snappy Lunch for a bite. We timed it between lunch rushes, which was nice. BJ tried the fried pork chop sandwich and Luther had a burger. I grabbed some chips and a side of bacon. It was definitely snappy and the service was good, but our opinion on the food: it was the “okayest” tourist food we’ve gotten, but the service was good! lunch $20

After lunch, we strolled around the shops of Main Street, hitting up the candy store and ice cream shop for treats, locating Brady’s coffee shop, and checking out the menus at a couple of the breweries to meet up with a friend for dinner later, deciding on Thirsty Souls Community Brewing since they offered gluten free pizza on their menu (totally forgot pictures–I was starving!). We also found a street fair going on that evening we had planned to stroll through, but the rain that held out found us, so we called it a day. snacks $6, coffee $4, post cards $3, pizza and drinks $35 (but our friend paid ours!)

We did skip the State Park and Pilot Mountain from the itinerary since the day was all about our teenager and they weren’t on his radar. All in all, it was a good trip, a neat town, and we’d highly recommend a stop here, either for a day or longer!

We nailed our $100 budget when we added it all up, although with our friend covering dinner, we were only out of pocket for $65–so it’s definitely doable on a budget!

Have you been to this adorable West North Carolina town to relive your favorite Andy Griffith Show scenes?