The best cheap things to do in Charlotte for absolutely any budget

The former factories that spread out on the 76-acre property that's now Camp North End feature a ton of bars and restaurants. But if they’re out of your price point, the good news is that this camp also has plenty going on that won't cost you a nickel, like regular live music from several makeshift stages and outdoor movie nights where all you’ll need is to bring the seat you were born with (that’s your bottom side). Check the events calendar for what’s happening today, but expect writing workshops, trivia nights and whatever random thing they think up next, which will maybe be your new favorite cheap night out.

Charlotte Brew Badge is like a half-off special that you can throw down all around town. It's a mobile happy hour, pretty much anytime the breweries are open. Buy the one-day $26.95 badge and it gets you $10 worth of free drinks at four breweries around town. The real savings, and serious drinking, is in the three-day pass, which gets $10 free tabs at nine breweries for $42.95. To plan out your own Brew Badge beerfest, the NoDa Craft Beer Trail is like a DIY brewery tour.

Zoom in close on a map of Charlotte, and you’ll notice green lines running along the riverways and taking up old train lines, bisecting parks and cutting through the city’s diverse neighborhoods and wards. Those greenways serve as the finest way to hit nearly every single thing a visitor or a local needs to do on any good day in Charlotte. Maybe best of all, the only price for entry will be the calories you burn along the way.

Food Truck Fridays have officially become a thing around town, with mostly reasonably priced four-wheeled vendors arriving to spots including Resident Culture Brewing and Armored Cow Brewing. But don't miss the free-to-get-in party at Black Food Truck Fridays, which becomes part food festival and part block party; follow the Facebook group for updates.

Do a web search for photos of Charlotte, and the top hits will inevitably be The Firebird, aka, the shiny-skinned Disco Chicken of Uptown. It's far from alone as a piece of art worthy of a visit—public art pieces around Charlotte include Independence Square's sculptures and Whitehall Corporate Center's Metalmorphosis. It’ll cost you nothing to visit them, and you can build your own walking tour out of hitting the 70-plus murals that grace walls around town, headlined, we'd argue, by Nick Napoletano's piece that depicts a woman painting the word "equity" while a tiny shadowy figure attempts, and fails, to blot it out.

Known mostly for its world-class rapids, the U.S. National Whitewater Center has expanded to include a zip line, ice skating and rock climbing. Which will all cost you. But head out to the 1,300 acres at the center instead for a trail system through beautiful (and free) forests along the Catawba River.

Most Mondays, the eclectic North Davidson Street music venue that is the Muse turns its stage over to anyone. Poets and comedians get up, and so do musicians, who are limited to two songs. Some of them are amazing and some are, well, not. But no matter, if you're singing along or guiltily experiencing a little schadenfreude, the entertainment that begins at 7:30, will cost you just $5.

The city is dotted these days with quality museums displaying everything from modern art to the cars NASCAR stars have used to make nothing but left turns. All of that culture will typically cost you, though, so plan out your visit for when the museums offer free admission, like Wednesday nights at both locations of the Mint Museum, second Tuesdays at the Schiele Museum and occasional free nights at the Gantt Center.

It seems like there are farmers' markets everywhere in Charlotte these days, including at Camp North End, Dilworth and Uptown. It'd be hard to beat the vibe at the one in Cotswold, though, with its live music and policy on vendors being those who actually produced the fruits, vegetables, loaves of bread and whatever else is fresh right now.

When it opened in 2007, the LYNX light rail line became a 9.6-mile route to travel north and south through Charlotte, making for an easy way to hit spots like the UNC Charlotte campus, the Music Yard at New Bern Station and Free Range Brewing. One-way tickets cost about two bucks, cheaper than the tip you usually forget to give to Uber drivers.