Take The Ingles Open Road to Bays Mountain Park and Planetarium

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I’m Chris Bainbridge… inviting you to take a ride with me. This is an amazing place to find adventure in all shapes and sizes. Ingles has sent me on a mission to bring you the very best of what our beautiful home has to offer – food, fun, nature music, and more… all affordable, and all out of the ordinary. This is The Ingles Open Road.

If you’re ready to probe the far reaches of the universe, experience the majesty of a mountain lake, come face to face with a wolfpack, and escape into the trails of the wilderness… then I’d say you have some pretty diverse interests. Lucky for you we’re here at Bays Mountain Park and Planetarium.

Located in Kingsport, Tennessee, this gorgeous nature preserve got its start in the late 60’s and early 70’s. To say it’s grown over the years would be an understatement. And today we’re going to explore some of what this local treasure has to offer.

We’re starting things off getting to know some of the original inhabitants of Bays Mountain. With wolves, bobcats, foxes, and more… the animal habitats here house creatures that are or were once native to this region.

As you move on with your day you can explore the 40 miles of hiking trails that traverse 3,650 acres of this amazing park.

If some quiet solitude in nature might be what you’re after, this is the place. But you can also participate in nature programs with park naturalists to really learn about some of what makes the flora and fauna of Bays Mountain so special.

You can fish here in the spectacular lake. Or you can get a little more up close and personal with the park’s aquatic life at The Watershed – a super cool aquarium in miniature that hosts a variety of fish, reptile, and amphibian species native to the park. And right above it is our next stop.

One of the really remarkable things about Bays Mountain is its state-of-the-art planetarium theater. In fact, it’s the only one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. And I’m really excited to check it out. This is truly incredible. We’re talking over 7,000 projected stars. Specialized projectors. And an experience that transports you to galaxies and solar systems beyond your imagination.