Highlands and Cashiers are close enough that many second-home buyers explore both during the same trip. Spend a little time in each, though, and the experience starts to feel very different.
In Highlands, the town itself can become part of your weekend. You can walk Main Street, meet friends for dinner, browse galleries, catch a performance, and still spend plenty of time outdoors. Cashiers often creates a more retreat-oriented rhythm, where the home, club community, golf course, or surrounding landscape may become the center of your stay.
Choosing a second home in Highlands or Cashiers gets much easier once you picture how you want to spend an ordinary weekend there.
Highlands Works Well When You Want Town Close By
One of Highlands' biggest lifestyle advantages is how naturally downtown can become part of your day. You can park near Main Street, walk between shops, galleries, restaurants, and nearby streets, and spend several hours in town without constantly getting back in the car. That walkability is a big part of what makes Highlands feel so easy to enjoy, especially when you are here for a long weekend or an extended stay.
That convenience can make a second home feel especially easy to use. You can arrive for a short weekend and still have plenty to do without planning every hour. Friends or family visiting with you can head downtown, grab coffee, shop, or meet you for dinner without the entire day revolving around the house.
Culture Is Part of the Highlands Experience
Highlands also has an unusually active arts scene for a small mountain town. The local cultural calendar includes galleries, live music, theater, film, visual arts, and performances, with institutions such as the Highlands Performing Arts Center adding more options throughout the year. Highlands' arts and culture scene is one reason a longer stay can feel very different from simply spending a few days in the mountains.
For a second-home owner, those details often carry more weight over time than they do during the first showing. Restaurants you return to, performances you look forward to, familiar shops, and favorite walks can turn a beautiful property into a place where you develop a real routine.
Cashiers Can Feel More Like the Retreat Itself Is the Destination
Cashiers creates a different version of mountain living. Your time there may center more heavily on the property, privacy, outdoor surroundings, and the amenities inside your community.
That can be especially appealing when your ideal second-home weekend includes golf in the morning, lunch at the club, time outside in the afternoon, and dinner with friends close to home. Private communities around Cashiers can make recreation and social life part of the ownership experience, which changes how often you feel the need to leave once you arrive.
The homes you encounter may also lead you toward that lifestyle. Buyers often explore wooded settings, golf communities, larger mountain properties, and homes where privacy and views are a major part of the appeal.
Cashiers Still Gives You Places to Gather
A retreat-oriented lifestyle can still include an active community around you. The Village Green sits at the crossroads of Highways 64 and 107 and covers more than 13 acres in the heart of Cashiers. It hosts more than 200 days of programming and events each year, giving residents and visitors a central place for markets, gatherings, celebrations, and other community activities.
Social life around Cashiers may also grow through your club, neighborhood, golf group, church, nonprofit involvement, or favorite local events. That gives you flexibility to decide how involved you want to be while still enjoying the privacy that drew you to the mountains in the first place.
The Type of Home You Want May Make the Choice Clearer
Lifestyle usually drives the Highlands versus Cashiers conversation, but the property itself can narrow the search quickly.
In Highlands, you may put more value on being close to town, having manageable grounds, or being able to arrive for a spontaneous weekend and easily move between home, restaurants, shopping, arts, and outdoor activities. Privacy and mountain views are still very much part of the market, and town access simply gives you another factor to prioritize.
Cashiers may pull you toward a property where the home and surrounding community play a larger role in how you spend your time. That could mean golf access, club amenities, wooded acreage, long-range views, or a setting where you are perfectly happy staying close to home for most of the weekend.
When you start your Highlands and Cashiers home search, it helps to decide which parts of the lifestyle deserve the most weight before you get too attached to a particular house.
Pricing Depends on the Property as Much as the Town
Pricing in both towns spans a wide range, from homes near town to club properties and larger mountain estates. Both are relatively small luxury markets, so a handful of sales can move a monthly median sharply. For a current read on the neighborhoods you are considering, ask us for a market snapshot built from recent Highlands-Cashiers sales.
That is especially important in a Highlands vs. Cashiers comparison because the homes themselves can be very different. A residence close to Main Street in Highlands, a club property in Cashiers, and a larger mountain estate may appeal to completely different buyers even when the prices overlap.
Picture Your Guests Staying for a Long Weekend
This is one of the easiest ways to make the difference feel real. A Highlands weekend might include coffee downtown, a walk through Main Street, lunch, a nearby hike, a gallery stop, and dinner or a performance later that evening. The town gives everyone something to do while still leaving plenty of time to enjoy the house.
In Cashiers, the same four-day visit might revolve around golf, time at the pool or club, a drive to Lake Glenville, dinner with friends, and long afternoons back at the property. The experience can feel more contained around the retreat you created.
Both versions can be wonderful. Your guests, hobbies, and the way you actually relax will tell you which one feels more natural.
Ask Yourself What You Will Really Use
A second home should work beautifully after the excitement of the purchase settles down. Before choosing between Highlands and Cashiers, think about the things you expect to use every time you come up:
- Town access: Will walking to dinner, shopping, and cultural activities improve your weekends?
- Club life: Will golf, pools, dining, fitness, or organized activities become part of every visit?
- Privacy: How much separation from neighbors and commercial areas feels comfortable to you?
- Guests: Will family and friends want activities close by, or will most of your time together happen at the house?
- Length of stay: A home for spontaneous weekends can call for different priorities than one where you plan to spend entire summers.
These questions also help us narrow the search around the homes that truly fit you. As you look at properties, we can focus on the lifestyle, budget, access, and mountain-home details that matter most to you.
Choose the Place You Will Want to Return To
A Highlands, NC second home can be a great fit when you want the town, restaurants, shops, arts, and mountain recreation to become part of the experience every time you visit.
A Cashiers, NC second home may fit naturally when privacy, club life, golf, wooded surroundings, and spending more of your time around the property are high priorities. The decision usually gets easier once you picture your real weekends rather than your first weekend.
Thinking about buying a second home in Highlands or Cashiers? Get in touch with us, and we can help you compare communities, homes, access, amenities, and the everyday details that will shape how you actually use your mountain home.
FAQs: Highlands or Cashiers for a Second Home?
Is Highlands more walkable than Cashiers?
Highlands has a concentrated downtown where many shops, restaurants, and galleries sit along and around Main Street. The Highlands Chamber describes the town as very walkable and notes that most shops and restaurants are located along Main Street.
Is Cashiers a good fit for a club-oriented second home?
It can be, especially when golf, dining, fitness, recreation, and the social side of a private community are important to how you plan to use the property. Your decision should also account for the individual club, location, membership structure, and home itself.
Which works better for a family second home?
Both can work very well. Highlands gives visiting family easy access to downtown, dining, shopping, culture, and outdoor activities, while Cashiers may suit a family that expects to spend more time around the property, club, golf course, pool, or lake.
Can I enjoy both Highlands and Cashiers after choosing one?
Yes. The communities are close enough that owners can enjoy restaurants, events, recreation, and activities in both. The more important question is which lifestyle you want immediately around your home.
About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Meadows Mountain Realty
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Meadows Mountain Realty has been a leading luxury real estate brokerage since 2003, with offices in both Highlands and Cashiers. That gives our agents firsthand knowledge of each town, and we help second-home buyers compare the two based on how they plan to spend their time: the setting, the nearby lakes and trails, the social calendar, and the kind of home that suits their visits.
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