What should I avoid in Lynchburg?

The costliest mistake happens before you leave home: the Jack Daniel's distillery is in Lynchburg, Tennessee, more than 400 miles southwest of here, and travelers still book flights into Lynchburg Regional Airport (LYH) in Virginia expecting a whiskey tour. Check the state on any 'Lynchburg distillery' listing twice. The second mistake is where you sleep. Most of the city's chain rooms line Wards Road and Candlers Mountain Road near River Ridge Mall, a stretch of six lanes, drive-thrus and parking lots where the air smells of fryer oil and exhaust and you drive everywhere. Stay downtown instead. The Craddock Terry Hotel sits in a converted shoe factory on Jefferson Street, and The Virginian is on Church Street. From either one, Riverfront Park, the Main Street restaurants and the Academy Center of the Arts are within a 10-minute walk.

Liberty University reshapes the city on a handful of weekends a year. On home football Saturdays at Williams Stadium, about 25,000 fans pour onto Wards Road and US-460: you can hear the drumline from the parking lots, and a 15-minute drive from downtown can stretch past 45. Rates at those same south-side hotels tend to double. Commencement in mid-May is worse. Liberty graduates thousands of students that weekend, and rooms within 30 miles likely sell out months ahead. Check Liberty's athletics calendar before you pick dates, and if your trip lands on a game day, spend that Saturday downtown or on the Blue Ridge Parkway and stay off the south side until the crowd clears after dark.

Lynchburg calls itself the City of Seven Hills, and first-timers underestimate what that means on foot. The 139 steps of Monument Terrace climb from Church Street up to the Old Court House on Court Street, and the streets rising from the James River feel steeper still on a humid afternoon, when the brick sidewalks give off heat. Leave the sandals and heels in the room. The Lynchburg Community Market at 1219 Main Street dates to 1783 and runs year-round, but on Saturdays the best peaches, sourdough, and coffee stands thin out by late morning, so arrive before 10am while the bread is still warm. Downtown goes quiet on Sunday nights and Mondays, when several Main Street kitchens close, so check the hours before you build a dinner plan around one.

Don't try Lynchburg without a car. GLTC buses run limited routes, evening and Sunday service is thin, and Uber or Lyft waits after 10pm can run 20 minutes or more. Amtrak's Northeast Regional reaches Kemper Street Station from Washington in about four hours, but the train gets you to the city and no further. The best half-day trips out have no practical transit: Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest in Forest, the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, and Appomattox Court House National Historical Park are all 20 to 40 minutes away by car. Skip River Ridge Mall, which has the same chain stores you have at home. On show nights, downtown street parking fills early. The SteelDrivers play the Academy Center of the Arts on Thursday 15 October and Postmodern Jukebox plays on Friday 16 October, so walk from your hotel if you can.