- Our first story takes us to the mountains where one way to explore is on a family friendly Asheville Jeep Tour.

[upbeat music] - The core mission behind what we do is best summed up as getting people outside.

We use Jeeps to do it, but the goal is to show people, hey, this is what's out here.

There's waterfalls, there's rivers, there's mountain views, and there's so much to see around Asheville and in the Appalachian Mountains.

I grew up here in Asheville and had an old beat up Jeep in high school and me and friends would come out here and explore and try and find new waterfalls along the way.

And I had the idea of just showing people some of these places I got to experience as a kid.

And what started as just a couple hiking tours in college has morphed into taking these big Jeeps and showing people so many different areas of what's out here and what's here to explore.

- First and foremost, we have our, what I call our backcountry tours and we have an excursion and it's a four hour trip and we'll see anywhere from four to seven waterfalls.

And that all depends on the time of year, the time of the day.

And then we have the parkway trip.

You get up on the parkway and you'll go 25, 30 miles and you come back.

It's more like a aerial view, so to speak, where you're up high looking out over the views.

And then we have a kind of an in between, we have our back roads trip and our back roads, you get to see some of the waterfalls down low and then you get up to the parkway and you get a viewpoint.

So it's kind of like a little bit of both.

And then in the fall we have a fall colors tour and that's specifically just to get out and see what you see around you right now.

Higher up you are, you have a lot more color and then you're down in the green and that color band just starts to travel down and travel down and travel down.

But the whole advantage of it is you get to see all these different environments at different times.

- When Helene came through, we were very, very fortunate to not be physically hit by the flooding or the storms and the landslides, but of course, tourism was almost non-existent.

We switched to recovery mode and we are loading the Jeeps up with supplies trying to help where we could, but we felt the impacts of the lack of tourism pretty much from the storm up until today with Asheville's tourism being low.

We need the tourism.

A lot of businesses are open and ready for business and this year has been trying to rebuild but also bring people back to Asheville.

And so the economic effect of Helene has been really devastating for us.

[upbeat music] - Yeah, so I think one of the things that we can really do an excellent job of with our staff is they can be very detailed about where to go and they can say, "Oh, you know, you wanna see this?

We'll take you to this waterfall and we can see this.

And you can get in there and you can get your experience out of get to what it is you want to do."

So we can very easily individualize what the client wants to fulfill that dream for these folks that come from out of town.

- It's a very easy and accessible way to experience this, to experience the natural beauty of the area that really makes Western Carolina what it is.

And you get guided to and from some really special, really cool places that you may have not been able to experience otherwise on your own.

- Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons.

Me personally, I'm from Charleston.

I come to the area a lot to climb or run, but with Asheville Jeep Tours, I can sit in this Jeep and see all of the things that I race past.

And to me that's huge because otherwise there's so much that I would miss, you know, if I didn't have the opportunity to just have somebody say, "Hey, look over here.

Have you ever seen this before?"

No, I haven't.

- Not only for the couple of hours that we spent with 'em today, but just for the next three or four days that we're here in Asheville, we've got recommendations for restaurants and other hikes and things to do if it rains in town.

And so we've kind of got the rest of our trip planned out from the three or four hours that we spent with 'em today.

- I love being outside.

Anytime I can do anything outside, it's so much better and I'm out here, I'm in this environment, I'm having this surrounding around me and so that just fills my soul.

And so if as me as a guide can be out here getting my soul filled by this, it seeps out it, you know, it flushes out to these folks around me.

That's the thing I love the most is you know, providing this opportunity for people to experience stuff that I could see every single day.

And so that's one of the the best things for me.

- You come to Asheville and you've got 500,000 acres of national forest around you, over 300 different waterfalls.

And so you get to go out with one of our guides.

It's gonna take you to the best parts out here and the coolest things to see.

It's gonna be safe, it's gonna be fun, it's gonna be informative and it's gonna be a really cool way to see Asheville and see the area.

- To plan your Asheville Jeep Tour, visit their website at ashevillejeeptrails.com.