Dive Brief:
- Outdoor-centric, boutique hotel brand Trailborn is expanding, opening a property in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains this summer, according to Castle Peak Holdings, the investment and development company behind the brand.
- Trailborn Highlands will open in its namesake town of Highlands, North Carolina, featuring 63 guest rooms, a restaurant and bar in a historic log cabin and various outdoor amenities.
- The hotel opens as travelers increasingly seek experience-based trips, particularly in destinations where they can connect with nature. Trailborn is among other boutique outdoor-centric brands expanding to cater to this changing traveler demand.
Dive Insight:
The newly renovated Trailborn Highlands hotel, designed to “provide everything guests need to enjoy the great outdoors,” will open in July, according to Castle Peak.
The hotel will feature a Nordic spa with a sauna and cold plunge showers, an outdoor “backyard” space off the lobby with picnic tables and fire pits and a retail market offering local goods. The property, surrounded by 4.5 acres of woods, will also feature a lily pond and flower gardens.
The property’s on-site restaurant and bar, The Highlands Supper Club, will offer Southern fare made with local ingredients, according to Castle Peak.
Guests will also have access to experience-based amenities such as on-site culinary events, floral design workshops and excursions like guided hikes and mushroom foraging.
Trailborn Highlands was designed in collaboration with New York-based studio Love Is Enough. The hotel design draws inspiration from the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains, with a color palette of earthy hues and decorative elements that reference quilting, printmaking and pottery.
Castle Peak said it is opening the property near Great Smoky Mountains National Park because it's one of the most visited national parks in the country.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most-visited national park in 2023, with more than 13 million recreational visits, according to National Geographic.
Trailborn is among other hospitality brands expanding near national parks or to top outdoor destinations to cater to changing traveler demand.
Last year, Margaritaville opened a resort in Lake Tahoe, while Gravity Haus expanded to Jackson Hotel, Wyoming. In September, Waterton launched the outdoor-focused brand Outbound Hotels, with planned locations near Yosemite, California, and Stowe, Vermont. And more recently, Hilton has also bet on the great outdoors by partnering with AutoCamp on boutique “glamping” accommodations near national parks.
Trailborn will continue its expansion later this year with other openings planned for the Grand Canyon; Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina; and Mendocino, California.
