Unique vacation spots in the Southeast?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Trying to plan a trip for the first week of January with wife and 18 month old, and can’t think of anything. I live in central Florida, so don’t really want to do any theme park/Disney kind of things. We usually just go to various beaches on our vacations, so I wanted to do something kind of different and a toddler would enjoy. I went to Savannah a couple of years ago and enjoyed that so was thinking something along those lines. We’ve been to all the major cities in FL, so trying to avoid that.

Mostly looking to do a lot of relaxing, maybe some nature stuff, some going out to eat, definitely something for children to do, and hopefully cool to mild weather.

Contenders so far:

Amelia Island
Charleston, SC
?

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

2

How cool is too cool? Asheville has a distinct winter but it’s wildly different in character from Florida and I really like going there and it would be inexpensive being it’s the off season. Biltmore and the mountain scenery are the marqee attractions. As far as food being the Carolinas there’s lots of BBQ around.

3

Gatlinburg, TN is nice, but it’s been since 1995 or so since I’ve been there.

4

Cool as in 30s-50s? I hadn’t thought of Asheville…that actually sounds quite interesting.