Charlotte is known as the "Queen City". It is named after Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg - the queen consort of King George III - hence the nickname Queen City. Being a major banking center (with the headquarters of both Bank of America and Wachovia), there are definitely other reasons to call it the queen city! A lot of big banks seem to attract the gay boys, and Charlotte is filled with the shirt and tie corporate gay boy types.
Charlotte has the feel of a small version of Atlanta. The downtown is full of public art and the buildings are well designed. The Bank of America headquarters building towers over the rest of downtown. Charlotte is just finishing building the NASCAR Hall of Fame (see picture above). The area around Charlotte is NASCAR country.
When I visit Charlotte, I stay close to South Park Mall. Not only are there a ton of nice hotels in the area, but there are restaurants everywhere as well. The mall itself has pretty much anything you would want.
As far as gyms go, the YMCA is definitely the place to be. I used to go to the YMCA in the Wachovia headquarters building downtown. The lunch crowd at this location is HOT HOT HOT! Although they are all straight, they line up to shower in the open shower room before going back to their offices. All I can say is YUM!!!! If you are looking for more of the gay-boy gym, the Dowd YMCA (just outside of downtown) is both a very nice facility, and filled with homos (although most are closeted).
Charlotte is also home to AEBN. For those of you that do not watch much porn, AEBN is the largest streaming porn site on the Internet. AEBN also owns Raging Stallion and a ton of smaller studios.
