Forget the Grand Canyon – enjoy the Blue Ridge Parkway

Forget the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park or the Crater on the Hawaii Island of Maui. These and other famous landmarks under Federal US National Park protection in the United States – are closed – and tour operators won’t let you cancel or give you a refund.

The Federal government of the United States shut down has many upset tourists including foreign visitors that had been looking forward for years to afford this one time dream vacation to the land of the free.

The United States Government as of October 1 is shut down.

North Carolina tourism officials lay out an example how this could all be an advantage for their state.

North Carolina tourism officials are encouraging fall visitors to take a travel break in a small town along the Blue Ridge Parkway during the federal government shutdown.

The shutdown includes federal facilities like national parks, visitor centers and rest areas — just as tourists are coming to western North Carolina to see the leaves changing colors. Last year, 22 percent of visitors here traveled to the state’s mountain region. State officials estimate that at about 9.8 million trips. And the fall, considered to be from September to November, had the highest proportion of travelers to the mountains, an estimated 30 percent.

Consider the Blue Ridge Parkway, the most-visited unit of the National Park Service, which runs for 252 miles in the state from the North Carolina High Country to the Great Smoky Mountains. The road will still be open, but all of its staffed rest stops, facilities and public campgrounds will be shuttered.

“Without the convenience of comfort stations every 20 or 30 miles, travelers will want to scope out less obvious places to take a break,” says Wit Tuttell, director of tourism marketing for the N.C. Department of Commerce’s Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development. “The payoff for mapping out the possibilities is discovering some of the small-town gems on the journey.”

State tourism officials are encouraging travelers to stop at Stone Mountain, Mount Jefferson, Mount Mitchell and Grandfather Mountain, all North Carolina state parks that will be open and staffed.

However, facilities at Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be closed.

“This is a key time of year for folks visiting the mountains,” says Margo Metzger, a state tourism spokeswoman. “It’s an inconvenience but it’s not going to ruin anyone’s trip. The shutdown doesn’t shut down the fall colors.”

Metzer says state park rangers will post updates at VisitNC.com/fall on leaf-color conditions.

Some beach access along the state’s 320-mile Atlantic coastline may also be closed due to the government shutdown. Other North Carolina landmarks that will be closed: Wright Brothers National Memorial, Bodie Island Lighthouse and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

But Currituck Beach Lighthouse at Corolla is open, as is Jockey’s Ridge State Park, which has a replica of the 1902 Wright Brothers glider and offers hang-gliding activities.