Month: March 2023

SANDHILLS STORY TRAIL ADVENTURES SET TO LAUNCH ON APRIL 11

Interactive Displays to Use Winnie-the-Pooh Likeness and QR Codes to Link Stories

SOUTHERN PINES, NC (March 28, 2023) – On April 11, the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) will launch the first in a series of three Sandhills Story Trail Adventures, an interactive display featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his cast of characters. The first of the Story Trails will be revealed at Nick’s Creek Greenway in Southern Pines. The project is part of the CVB’s support for the Year of the Trail initiatives in North Carolina. On March 20, the CVB launched the Pinecone Pathways Program.

“We are consistently asked about what there is for families with young kids to do beside play golf in our destination,” says CVB President and CEO Phil Werz. “The Sandhills Story Trail Adventures is a great option for parents with children ranging from five to nine years of age. It ties in perfectly with the Year of the Trail and gets families out to enjoy the stories while they walk some of our beautiful trails in Moore County.”

The Sandhills Story Trail Adventures is an original creation produced by the CVB and features Winnie-the-Pooh in a series of interactive fictional stories that take place throughout the Sandhills. The story trails feature large, life-sized cutouts of Pooh and his friends that can be viewed in a series of stations where people can scan a QR code and read the next chapter or listen to it on their smartphone. Future stories in the series will be displayed along Moore County trails to be determined later this year. The entire story trails series was concepted, created, written and voiced by the CVB, primarily by Destination Storyteller Dan Dreyer.

The Year of the Trail celebrates North Carolina’s vast network of trails, greenways, and blueways that showcase our diverse landscapes – grand mountain vistas, quiet rivers, vibrant urban greenways, coastal forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. This is the largest statewide celebration of trails and outdoor recreation in North Carolina history.

North Carolina is the Great Trails State, where each of North Carolina’s 100 counties can enjoy the proven benefits of trails, including health, safety, economic development, tourism, transportation, and environment. Trails are the backbone of our state’s growing $28 billion outdoor recreation economy.

The Year of the Trail campaign will reach communities with the message of how and where to experience trails that showcase North Carolina’s beautiful landscapes, provide healthy recreation, and stimulate local economies. The NC General Assembly designated 2023 as the Year of the Trail, an effort led by the Great Trails State Coalition, a broad-based group of diverse organizations, agencies and supporters advocating for increased state investment in all types of trails statewide: hiking, paddle, mountain biking, equestrian and paved.

For more information about the Sandhills Story Trails Adventures, go to: https://www.homeofgolf.com/sandhills-storytrails/. To learn more about Year of the Trail programs in Moore County, visit https://www.homeofgolf.com/moore-trails/.

The Pinehurst Southern Pines Aberdeen Convention & Visitors Bureau
The Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) is the economic development agency responsible for travel and tourism promotion, product development, and visitor services for Moore County, NC. The CVB devises strategies to enhance the County’s tourism brand value and product to accommodate the next generation of visitors, thereby stimulating the local economy and enhancing the quality of life for residents and visitors alike. In 2021, Moore County ranked as the tenth largest tourism economy in North Carolina, generating $673 million annually in visitor spending, which supports the second largest employment sector in the county and saves county residents approximately $516 a year in state and local taxes.

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