Just as a suggestion, get the umbrella for shade for a dollar, my girlfriend and I both got very well sunburnt. We mined for a couple hours, going through six buckets of dirt, after which we didn't have much to show for it. Here, you can find garnet, sapphires, rubies, rutile, moonstone and silimanite. Cherokee Ruby Mine is only native, non-enriched dirt, which was an instant draw.
They charged $15 a person to mine, which included 2 free buckets of dirt, then $2.50 per bucket after that. Our first stop in North Carolina was the Cherokee Ruby Mine, north of Franklin. They also sell buckets of dirt online, and I will be buying one soon just for fun. I would recommend this attraction if you want to find some stuff and get your moneys worth, even though we just kind of sat there while all the work except picking the gems out of the gravel was done for us. The big picture: We found a good amount of stuff for the value, basically like we paid for the cut gem and got everything else as a bonus. The woman inside identified our finds and told us a little about them. The staff here were very nice, although the guy helping us with our bucket ended up taking the screens from my girlfriend and I and basically doing the work for us, which was slightly disappointing. For the cut gem, they let us pick a random plastic easter egg, and the gem ended up being a very nice oval cut amethyst. The quality was pretty good, and we also got a free cut gem. We found emerald, sapphire, ruby, citrine, a ton of moonstone, black tourmaline, amethyst, crystal quartz, aquamarine, smoky quartz, turquoise, pyrite, and some other tumbling rocks. The buckets were salted with a variety of minerals, and we found alot of them. The bucket of dirt we bought here was $25.
The third stop on our gem mining adventure was Gold City Gem Mine, just north of Franklin, NC. While you don't really have the chance to find an amazingly valuable gem, the quality and amount of stuff you find here is great. I would highly recommend if you want to find a bunch of stuff to make this your stop. The big picture: This was far and away our best stop on our vacation as far as finds for our value is concerned, and also the personality of the staff was fantastic. My girlfriend got the amethyst that she had picked at Gold City set in a necklace here as well. The woman inside identified our finds and showed us which ones had good potential for cutting. The staff here was fantastic, the guy in charge of the buckets was very friendly and talkative. Here too, we found alot, and it also came with a free cut gem, an oval cut lavender amethyst. Finally, as we intended this to be our final stop for our vacation, we did a $25 bucket which was salted with a bunch of different minerals. We found a ton, some of which was good material. First I did a $15 emerald bucket while my girlfriend did a $15 ruby and sapphire bucket. Our fourth stop was the Cowee Mountain Ruby Mine, also just north of Franklin, NC, and just a few miles down the road from the Gold City Gem Mine.