NC Tripping Best of North Carolina: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Are the Best of North Carolina Awards and Who Runs Them?

The Best of North Carolina Awards, shortened by their own publisher to the Best of NC, are a public reader vote run by NC Tripping, a North Carolina travel site that introduces itself as "independently-managed (and family-owned)". The site's footer carries a copyright line naming Travel Through Life LLC, which makes that company the publishing entity behind the masthead.

The program's home is the publisher's own domain, nctripping.com, so the ballot sits next to the site's travel writing instead of on an outside polling service. Its subject matter follows the publisher's beat: the honored entries are North Carolina destinations and businesses, the places readers eat, stay and explore, and the 2022 results page introduces the whole exercise as decided by "our readers and followers throughout the state of North Carolina and beyond". Readers and social media followers alike feed the same slate. That positioning separates the program from chamber of commerce drives and newspaper readers choice ballots, which usually honor a broader local roster.

The offering expanded as the program matured: by the 2022 round the field of destinations and businesses readers could honor had grown wider than it stood at the outset. No city, county or region anchors the program; its market is the entire state.

Which Editions Have Run and When Does the Vote Happen?

Confirmed editions of the Best of NC stand at 2021, 2022 and 2025. The rhythm between them is annual, and the 2025 round was billed as the fifth annual Best of North Carolina Awards, a label consistent with earlier rounds predating the confirmed list. A companion feature on the same site, the North Carolina Travel Awards, opened its 2022 round with the publisher's own words, "Welcome to the 2022 North Carolina Travel Awards, where we at NC Tripping feature the Best of North Carolina in multiple categories."

The voting phase lands late in the calendar. The cycle runs across November and December, a stretch when holiday trip planning peaks and a travel publisher's audience is primed to weigh in on where to go.

What the published pages leave out shapes how a supporter plans. Neither a printed opening date nor a printed closing date appears on the 2022 ballot page for the Best of NC vote; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Nothing on the ballot describes a nomination stage ahead of voting either. And the rules of participation go unstated, since the page carries no text on repeat visits, device limits or who qualifies to cast a ballot.

How Does a Supporter Vote in the Best of NC Today?

Voting happens entirely on nctripping.com. A supporter opens the ballot page for the live cycle, works through the category slate, and backs a North Carolina destination or business in each group they care about. Because the publisher addresses both its readers and its social media followers, the vote draws on both channels of that following.

The ballot is embedded in a travel article rather than a standalone contest portal. On the 2022 page the voting content sits beneath the editorial introduction, so a visitor scrolling for the first time passes the publisher's framing before reaching the choices. No polling service brand wraps the experience; the layout is the site's own.

Several practical points stay open from cycle to cycle. The page states no registration requirement, so nothing suggests an account is needed. It publishes no ceiling on returns, no instruction to come back on a schedule, and no note on whether selecting a category locks the rest. And the exact button or confirmation flow can change with each redesign, which makes the live page the only authority on the mechanics of the moment.

How Does This Ballot Compare With Other North Carolina Reader Votes?

North Carolina carries a deep bench of public votes, and the sibling programs on this site sketch the field. Charlotte Magazine fields its own Best of the Best contest for a metro readership, Daily Reflector Best Of Pitt County serves a single eastern county's paper, and the Fayetteville Community's Choice Awards belong to one city. The 2025 Diamond Awards and the 910Preps Fans' Choice Boys Soccer Player of the Year tilt the lineup toward sports and prep athletics.

Against that field the Best of NC holds a position none of the others claim. It is statewide, it honors destinations and businesses rather than people or institutions, and it grew out of a travel publisher's editorial calendar rather than a newsroom's readers choice drive. A bed and breakfast, a mountain town or a barbecue joint looking for a public vote that fits its trade has a natural home here that a city magazine ballot would not offer in quite the same way.

Readers weighing where their attention goes can compare the Best of North Carolina program or see how Charlotte Magazine's Best of the Best contest frames its own metro vote.

Building Support for a Best of NC Nominee

Reach decides this race. The publisher counts on readers and social media followers, so a nominee's strongest move is mobilizing an existing audience: ask customers and guests to visit the ballot during the November and December stretch, share the category link while voting is live, and make the case for the nomination in the business's own newsletter or posts.

Because the publisher frames the outcome as reaching an audience well past its home state, outreach does not have to stop at the border either; former visitors and out-of-state fans of a destination have as much standing in this tally as locals do. The organizer publishes no policy on outside assistance or purchased support, so anyone weighing that path should start from the ballot's own terms and the general background in this guide to earning votes. The legal side of paid support in public polls is covered separately at this legality overview. No vote service can promise an outcome in a poll whose rules go unpublished; the dependable foundation is the following a nominee brings and the clarity of its pitch.