Who Are We?
The Better Carolina Team is made up of a few people. My name is Ryan Long. I married my college sweetheart Kaitlyn. We have a very cute daughter named Madilyn. I am an Industrial Engineer working in the Pharmaceutical industry and an Army National Guard Engineer Officer. Kaitlyn is a Physician Assistant Student at ECU. We currently live in Greenville NC and love to explore everything this community has to offer.
What Is The Better Carolina?
North…. North Carolina is the better (if not the best) Carolina. I understand some may disagree with this statement. I genuinely wonder what it must be like to be so wrong. In all honesty, Kaitlyn and I were both born in, raised in, currently live in and plan to stay in North Carolina. So we might be a little biased. That being said, North Carolina has quite a nice list of things going for it:
- Wide variety of beaches that range from highly accessible to remote untouched wild
- Countless waterfalls, gorges, and hiking trails to explore them all
- Some of the best stretches of the Appalachian trail
- This highest peak east of the Mississippi
- The Blueridge parkway
- The Best college basketball rivalries
- The world’s largest natural habitat zoo
- The Better Carolina Team lives there
- And a bunch of other cool stuff that we will write about
“Ya but S***** Carolina is really cool because…:” Yes our neighbors to the south do have a few things going for them also and I do believe we can co-exist with them. However, rather than try to list off things each state has or does not have, allow me to direct you to the state motto of North Carolina. Esse quam videri. Roughly translated, it means “To Be Rather Than to Seem”. AKA North Carolina is the real deal. I see North Carolinians live up to this every day and I am proud to do so myself. Honestly, that is just good life advise (like maybe put that on a t-shirt or something, am I right?). The things we write about I believe embody this idea of being authentic experiences. I think you will agree also. The other Carolina’s motto is something about hoping while breathing. Lame.
Why Write About The Better Carolina?
Having grown up in Raleigh NC, Kaitlyn and I found ourselves taking a lot of awesome things for granted that our home town/state have to offer. The travels we have gone on around the country and the world made us realize how great this state is and how we need to celebrate it more for what it has to offer.
Most of the things we have here are nothing you would travel across the world to come see but they are the types of activities you would definitely go and do if you live near by. We felt like there was a gap in the information available to help people find activities to do in the area. Not to mention we just like to share fun stuff we do with people.
We hope that this helps someone plan a great day trip, outing with the family or even weekend getaway. There is so much to do and see in North Carolina, and the Better Carolina Team has a lifetime to explore them all.
More About Our Past
Kaitlyn and I were both born in the mid 1990’s in Raleigh North Carolina. While none of our parents are native to Raleigh or even NC, we have lived in NC our entire lives and love this state dearly. I went to NC State (WOLFPACK!) and Kaitlyn went to UNC. By some miracle, we found ourselves on a date at local coffee house in Raleigh. Despite failing to pay for her coffee on the first date, I convinced Kaitlyn to go on a second date.
In a few short years we packed in a lot of living. We were married , we flipped a house, I was deployed, Madilyn was born and I come home in June 2020. Clearly bored, Kaitlyn decided to go to PA school and of course got early acceptance to her first choice. East Carolina. Quickly realizing we did not want to have 1.5 hrs between us each day, I found a new job in Greenville and we moved to Pitt county in April 2021.
Before getting accepted to ECU for PA school, we had been to Greenville a total of 1 time between us both. Needless to say when we moved out to Pitt County we had no clue what to do for fun let alone what to do with a 1 year old. We quickly found ourselves asking what is there to do out in Eastern NC?
For a while, we joked that the only reason to visit was if you had family/friends in the area. Despite our joke, we were finding new and fun things to do in town and in the area that we had never done before and wanted to show people and did not even realize it. One day on Onslow Beach, I had a wild idea (of which I have many) to record reviews of all these different beaches we were visiting at the time. Slowly that morphed into a full blown blog of our different adventures. Thus the Better Carolina Adventure Team was born
A blog is by no means a new idea but we felt like we might provide some value to some. All the same I genuinely hope that reading our experiences can help you find where a bright smile might come from. Regardless of your age, your preferences, special considerations or family size, I want to make it easy for you to find something you can enjoy doing in the Better Carolina.
Want More? Subscribe! Or Check out our Activity Map for more cool Activities. Check out the NC State Parks Website for other great resources