A Few New Favorites in Raleigh

January 28, 2025

A few new favorites in raleigh

Raleigh is an easy 3-hours from most points of the Grand Strand. As a capital city, it has lots to offer in the way of museums, libraries, monuments, etc. But it’s also full of great shopping, dining, and family-friendly play. Here are a few new favorites in Raleigh.

shop, eat, play

SHOP | A favorite local and travel activity is to find unique bookstores. Quail Ridge Books is huge, centrally located and has so many great “staff picks” scattered throughout the store that you’ll want to browse every aisle. They have the coolest kids section and gorgeous bathroom wallpaper! It’s located in the popular North Hills area and there are dozens of shops and restaurants nearby for further exploring.

SHOP | Raleigh has a great children’s consignment shop. The creator behind Triangle Families Explore started Little Oak Collective, a second-hand kids store with high-quality and timeless brands. We grabbed both kids Columbia rain jackets on this trip for $18. 

EAT | One of our favorite places to eat in Raleigh is Lime & Lemon Indian Grill — we always go out of our way for it, it’s fantastic! There are some cool food halls in Raleigh. We drove past Raleigh Iron Works and I want to stop in during our next trip. I’ve seen Little Rey and Jaguar Bolera as local kid-friendly favorites. For breakfast we enjoyed Juicekeys for their smoothies, power bowls and huge energy balls. If you want breakfast tacos then Torchy’s Tacos is a favorite from our Austin days.

PLAY | We tried the new Sassafras Playground and loved that. It’s huge and probably very crowded on warm weekends so be aware of that. For indoor play we also tried the new Happy Feet Planet in Clayton (about 20 minutes from central Raleigh). This is a cool indoor play center with spaceship themes and some cool light-up slides. They do require advance reservations for the weekends but you can make those online.

OTHER SEE & DO | On previous trips we visited many of the museums. Read about those here. For more ideas, here are my favorite family/mom creators in Raleigh: Triangle Families ExploreRaleigh Family Adventure, and NC Mom Adventures

more trip ideas

Check out more regional travel ideas here.