I think we should consider the proposals being for a place AND a weekend... since some weeks are bad for Boston, some might be bad for NC (local festival or whatev).

Since we've got the poll running, I suppose we might as well wait and see what comes of it - if there's one weekend that's a dominant favorite, I think we should go for it. If things are more spread out, considering the cities along with the dates might make sense.

Chapel Hill - Durham NC:

Advantages:
Several localistas (me maybe, amyth, smonster, amych, Calli, and others)
One airport (RDU) with decent rates available; train and bus too.
Lots of hotels, due to RTP and business needs; I'm sure we could find something reasonably priced, though the location might be sort of suburban.
Good food of various kinds, from foreign to down-home.
Chapel Hill and Durham are college towns - there's music scenes, art-house movies, thrift stores, Durham Bulls baseball, etc. I think others would be better pimpers than me on this front - my pimpage tends to be "there's a great museum for kids and a farmer's market with heirloom tomatoes!"

Disadvantages:
Limited public transportation and not very walkable outside the immediate downtowns of Chapel Hill and Durham.
Definitely more limited entertainment options when compared with Boston and NYC.

Date considerations:
Avoid like hell Mother's day weekend, which is graduation for UNC and Duke.
It can easily be in the 90s by May.

Another thing with picking dates first -- at least in Boston, those first two and maybe three weekends are going to very difficult for hotel availability due to graduations.

Yes. I meant to say this. If we want to do Boston, it needs to be the second weekend of June or after. Which, is still pretty nice weather-wise.

squooshes Jilli back

No March or April dates for NC?

NC in May is a lot like NOLA in May. But somewhat less humid.

But yes, Mother's Day weekend is an absolute no-no unless you want a hotel somewhere like Hillsborough. Not that there's anything wrong with Hillsborough, but transportation issues would be worse.

Another nice thing about Salem that doesn't get attention. Right near the pedestrian mall that's downtown, or at least tourist central, there's a residential street full of Federalist-style homes built in the 1790s. It's a delightful walk on a sunny day.

Yay flea for NC pimpage! Weather is lovely here in March and April.

I'll look into hotels next week. In the meantime, some esoteric pimping info (and Buffista tour!):

I'm sure flea and amych and Calli know a lot about Durham that I don't, in terms of where to eat/drink/hang out, but here are a few of the Big Highlights:

Duke Forest
Duke Gardens
Eno River (where smonster and I first met Calli at their annual Festival)

In Carrboro/Chapel Hill we have:

Cat's Cradle (for music, as well as lots of other live music venues in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham and Raleigh, as flea mentioned.)
Many, many drinking establishments, including The Cave (included here mainly because I just stumbled across their website and it cracks me up. Actually, The Cave is quite small, and probably couldn't handle a full F2F's worth of Buffistae) and The Orange County Social Club (where I believe Drew once posted to b.org from)
Wootini a store for Buffistas.
Time After Time, where amych once bought a Batman lunch box.
In nearby Pittsboro, we have Beggars and Choosers, a three-story vintage/thrift lovefest. Notable also because my pal, Allen, is dead center in the picture on the front of the web page.
Also in Pittsboro, The General Store, home of delicious vegetarian lunches, and site of a Buffista lunch, long ago.
A kickass drag king troupe.
Our local organic grocery/food coop/neighborhood hangout for the whole dang town, which SA can attest to being hippie-tastic. Stand still at this location for long enough, and you will see Darth. FACT.
Our nearby dairy farm, with an ice cream store, which serves homemade ice cream, and sports a huge porch that looks over the countryside. They also have a Got Milk? poster with Boreanaz on it by the cash register.

For your entertainment, a rap about Carrboro, which lists many of its, um, charms, complete with links! And they also made an accompanying video. And, oh yeah, they made a blog. Like you do.

This seems hilarious in comparison to Boston and New York. But yeah. That's where I live. If you come, we will give you sweet tea.

(Actual helpful links to Orange County Visitors Bureau and Durham County's Official Tourism and Information Site.)

A kickass drag king troupe.

LOVE. THEM.

If you come, we will give you sweet tea.

Love this, too.

A kickass drag king troupe.

Ooh, hey, I know one of them.

And sweet tea is teh yum.

Also chiming in on the joys of sweet tea. Especially when washing down barbecue.