Visitor Information Guide
For your stay on campus
Housing, kitchens, and what to bring up the mountain.
This guide covers what you need to know before you travel: what we provide, what you need to bring, what it costs to eat on the Plateau, and how our shared campus works. Almost everything visitors tell us they wished they had known is on this page.
Instructors and group leaders: sending this link to your students in advance saves a great many questions on arrival, and saves them money on groceries.
We provide
Waiting for you
- A bed — every bed at the Station is an XL twin
- A fully equipped kitchen: range and oven, microwave, toaster, coffee maker, refrigerator and freezer
- Pots, pans, baking dishes, knives, and cooking utensils
- Plates, bowls, mugs, glasses, cutlery
- Dish soap, sponges, dish rack
- Free laundry — Valentine House or the Weyman Building
- Campus-wide Wi-Fi — bring your own device
- Cleaning of shared spaces, twice weekly
- Lab and classroom space by arrangement
You bring
In the car
- All bedding and linens — XL twin, or rent a set from us for $50
- Towels, washcloths, and toiletries
- Groceries for the week, bought before you drive up
- Coffee and filters; spices, oil, condiments
- Food-storage containers and a marker for labeling
- A cooler for field days
- Field gear and any research permits
- Laundry detergent — machines are free, soap is not supplied
Leave at home
Cookware. Every season, visitors haul pots, pans, and place settings up the mountain and never take them out of the car. Every residence has a fully equipped kitchen. Bring food, not equipment.
Is it already there, or do I pack it?
Search anything you are wondering about — a colander, a towel, a toaster. Add whatever you need to bring to a packing list as you go.
Or start with one of these:
Buy your groceries down the mountain
This is the single most expensive mistake visitors make. Everything sold up here has been driven up a mountain to a small resort town with a short season. Prices run well above what you will pay off the mountain, and the selection is much narrower.
Meals are not included in your stay and there is no dining hall. Every resident cooks.
- ~2,100 ft Franklin · Sylva · Clayton Full-size supermarkets on the common approaches. Shop here.
- 3,486 ft Cashiers The nearest full-size store once you are on the Plateau.
- 4,118 ft Highlands · HBS One grocery store, a few convenience stores, Plateau prices.
How much food is that?
Set the length of your stay and shop for this many meals before the climb. Field days run long, so lunches travel with you.
Plan on roughly one refrigerator shelf per person, and freeze anything for later in the week flat.
Where you will stay
Five residences on campus sleep 52 people in total. Housing is hostel-style: shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, and shared kitchens and living space. It is simple and practical, and it works because everyone cleans up after themselves. We cannot accommodate requests for private rooms or residences — your arrival email names your building and the address to use.
Sleeping
Every bed is an XL twin and bedrooms are shared. Mattresses are firm, so a mattress pad is worth the space in the car. Bunk frames and bedroom walls carry sound through a quiet building — earplugs are a small investment in a good night before a long field day. Nights on the Plateau are cool even in July; bring a real blanket, not just a sheet.
Bathrooms
Bathrooms are shared, and in the cottages and Valentine House they are used by everyone on your hall. Keep your things in your room rather than on the counter, and give the next person the bathroom you would want to walk into. Tell staff at the Administration Building when soap, paper, or anything else runs out.
A shared campus
The Station is a 24-acre public campus. Visitors, gardeners, and Nature Center guests share it with you, so a little consideration goes a long way.
Cleaning · Tue & Sat
There is no full-time housekeeper. A cleaning service comes twice a week and takes care of shared spaces — bathrooms, kitchens, and common rooms. Cleaners do not enter personal bedrooms.
Between visits the shared spaces are ours to keep: wash your dishes the day you use them and wipe down what you cook on.
Laundry & Wi-Fi
Laundry is free; bring detergent and empty the lint trap. Cottage residents use the Weyman Building, through the exterior door to the left of the large windows. Valentine and Duplex residents use the machines in Valentine House.
Wi-Fi is free across campus — bring your own device. Signal in the surrounding mountains is another matter.
House rules
- Bears are the reason for most of these rules. Never leave food or trash outside or in a vehicle.
- Alcohol inside residences only, per university policy.
- Label all food with your name and departure date. Unmarked items are discarded.
- Clean up after yourself in common-use facilities.
Tell us the day you notice it
If something is wrong — a dead burner, a shower that will not drain, a room that is not clean, a supply that has run out — report it to staff at the Administration Building right away, or call 828.526.2602 and use Option 2 outside business hours.
We would far rather fix a problem on Tuesday than hear about it in an end-of-season survey. Nobody should have a poor stay over something we did not know about and could have put right while you were here.
Finding us
Your accommodation determines which address to use — check your arrival email, and enter the address before you set off. Cell reception is limited on the approach to Highlands, and a map app with no signal is no map at all.
- 888 Horse Cove Road, Highlands, NC 28741 — the Duplex and Valentine House.
- 265 North Sixth Street, Highlands, NC 28741 — the cottages.
Shop, and enter the address
Groceries in the car, navigation set while you still have signal.
Self check-in
Arriving early? Park, and walk the Botanical Gardens or visit the Nature Center until your room is ready.
Claim a shelf, meet the house
Label your food with your name and departure date, and sort out refrigerator space with your housemates.
Say so on day one
Administration Building during business hours, or 828.526.2602, Option 2 outside them.
Check out by noon
The checklist below takes a group about half an hour.
Departure checklist
Check-out is noon. Work through this with your group before you drive off — the next residents arrive the same afternoon.
That is the whole house.
Drop the keys in the designated classroom space, and safe travels down the mountain.
Need anything
We look forward to welcoming you.
HBS staff are at the Administration Building during business hours, or call 828.526.2602. If something in this guide is wrong, out of date, or missing, tell us before you leave — it is rewritten each season from what visitors say.
Highlands Biological Station · 265 N Sixth St, Highlands NC 28741