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Very vauge question, so I'm just going to toss a few things out....
First stop I would recommend is the visitors' center on Morgan Street downtown. Wonderful folks there will give you all kinds of ideas, advice, flyers & maps of the area.
Things that we enjoy doing in Durham....
Durham Bulls Baseball
Carolina Theatre (concerts plus current & older movies)
DPAC (Durham Performing Arts Center). Great shows coming through all the time (plays, musicals, concerts, etc).
Eating .... seriously, so many restaurants & so little time! We like Revolution, Tylers, Dos Perros, Geer Street Garden, Daisy Cakes has a store front now and Bull McCabe's.
MotorCo has some good concerts & we love the Sunday Brunch. Papa Mojos & Pinhook are supposed to be good too, but we've yet to get to either of those (we keep trying but something always comes up).
Durham Central Park has lots going on. That is where the Farmer's Market is. We've been there for the Food Truck Rodeo & several free concerts over the summer.
Duke University has tons of stuff going on. Concerts, sports, speakers, etc. Some free some not. And of course the Duke Gardens are amazing & they also have seminars & gardening workshops going on year round.
The Museum of Life & Science has "adult only" evenings about every other month. I know after the first of the year they are doing the Science of Wine. During the same time they do offer a kids program, so no sitter needed.
There is Northpoint Mall. Smaller than other malls in the area, but close & convenient.
The other beauty about Durham is we are so centrally located. Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Wake, etc are all in a 20 - 60 minute drive. That opens up even more to you. There is a planetarium, several museums. an I-Max theatre, several smaller theatres where you can catch all types of plays, UNC Botanical garden (& they offer workshops too), Walnut Creek is an outdoor concert venue (we saw Jimmy Buffett & Journey there last summer), and the RBC center has hockey & bigger shows through.
What we've done is setup "Likes" on Facebook & "Follows" on Twitter to keep up with everything being offered. Another good idea would be signing up for Groupon, Livng Social, Twongo & ZSpot Deals. You get some nice offers on different things that you might be interested in trying & will learn about things out there you didn't even know existed.
And as far as safety, I work in Durham right downtown. I walk to the YMCA, Farmer's Market, DPAC, restaurants and salon all the time. And on weekends we park at my office & walk places (I'm cheap & like the free parking ). I have no qualms with parking and walking around. Obviously you have to use common sense (lock your car, don't flash your cash, etc) but in downtown proper you shouldn't have issues.
We find that in Durham you have to work hard to be bored. Seems like there is always something going on.
There are some nicer safer parts of durham (closer to RTP) but there are other parts of durham I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I work in RTP. Some areas around here are nice.. I guess it would be considered southern durham/ morrisville area. Southpoint is the nice area of durham.
There are parts of durham downtown that I don't even want to drive through. Must be the slums of durham. I'll admit it has put a sour taste in my mouth for durham in general. I wouldn't feel safe in downtown but closer to RTP is perfectly fine. Alot to do there... i'd consider it urban but its in the more suburban parts of durham. So keep in mind the suburban areas... you won't know what you like until you visit.
There are some nicer safer parts of durham (closer to RTP) but there are other parts of durham I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I work in RTP. Some areas around here are nice.. I guess it would be considered southern durham/ morrisville area. Southpoint is the nice area of durham.
There are parts of durham downtown that I don't even want to drive through. Must be the slums of durham. I'll admit it has put a sour taste in my mouth for durham in general. I wouldn't feel safe in downtown but closer to RTP is perfectly fine. Alot to do there... i'd consider it urban but its in the more suburban parts of durham. So keep in mind the suburban areas... you won't know what you like until you visit.
Every city is going to have its areas that aren't as well off. I'm sorry to hear that driving through a rough part of town once can turn you off of a place, but you need to realize everyone is different.
OP: If you've lived in an urban environment before, then there's nothing about Downtown Durham that will scare you. In fact, there's a lot of cool stuff going on. For example, I live in the Burch Avenue neighborhood, where I'm 3 blocks from a Duke bus stop (I work in the Medical Center) and am about 1/4 mile from Brightleaf Square. I'm within walking distance and bike riding distance to the following cool things in Durham:
Fullsteam Brewery and Motoroc Music Hall
Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Brightleaf Square (The Federal is a great bar, with excellent food)
Durham Farmer's Market, where I spend my Saturday mornings as a vendor
Golden Belt, which has great open gallery hours to stop by and visit different artist's studios
American Tobacco Campus, which has tons of free entertainment all year, including free concert and movie series each summer
9th Street, a funky and cool shopping district with tons of independent stores
I'd recommend stopping by here for a look if you have a chance. Check out some neighborhoods near downtown or north. Some neighborhoods you may want to look at could include places like Northgate Park and Duke Park. There's also a few suburban-style developments off of Guess Rd and farther north off of I-85 at the Glenn School Rd and Club Blvd exits. A location like this would leave you near shopping, and just 10 minutes from downtown if you wanted to catch some entertainment.
I guess you must not have been in Durham in the past decade or so. Things are a wee bit different here than they used to be. I also have spent time in the Butner/Creedmoor area so I'm happy to help with some comparisons.
My wife and I live just outside downtown in a nice neighborhood with tree-lined streets and Duke's campus. We're a 10 minute walk from a Whole Foods organic market -- though like Butner, we have Food Lions too, if that's your thing. We'd have to walk about 25 minutes to get to the Food Lion.
There isn't a single main drag like there is in Butner/Creedmoor with your Sonic, McDonalds, KFC, Hardees, former-waffle-shop-where-sketchy-stuff-must-have-happened, and Wendy's. We have multiple main drags, which means you have to choose between frequenting places like Southpoint (where there's a Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Crate & Barrel, etc.) or New Hope Commons (Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, etc.) or South Square (Super Target, Sam's Club, Harris Teeter.)
Butner is closer to Henderson, the remaining drive-in movie site in central N.C., after Durham's closed. However, we do offer movies via the Carolina Theatre downtown, an historic early 20th-century theatre that shows art films and which hosts the country's largest documentary film festival every spring. There's also three other multiplexes in Durham, including one with an IMAX. I'm not sure they've perfected IMAX for drive-ins yet.
We don't have huntin', fishin', or guttin' the results of the first two here, but there are plenty of scenic spaces like the Eno River city and state parks, Duke Forest, and the northern trailhead of the American Tobacco Trail, which runs from downtown to Southpoint and is great for walking, jogging or biking.
We don't have real farmers in the city like you'd find in Butner, but we do have a great farmers' market, heavy on natural foods and foodstuffs and a center for the community, just a few blocks from a great brewery, beer garden, playhouse, yoga studio, bakeries, restaurants, etc.
My wife and I love living in Durham. I just finished walking to work after stopping at my favorite coffeeshop for some hot tea -- and where I ran into a neighbor and chatted for a bit. With transit here, on Friday I left my car at work and took a bus to the airport -- no parking charges and I was there in 40 minutes' time door to door.
I'm still not sure where all the Durham hatin' comes from -- though I have guesses.
Though I can say, unequivocally, that in a weird parallel to the quoted poster, I live in Durham and would never drive to Butner for movies or shopping. I'd go to Raleigh instead, personally.
There are some nicer safer parts of durham (closer to RTP) but there are other parts of durham I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I work in RTP. Some areas around here are nice.. I guess it would be considered southern durham/ morrisville area. Southpoint is the nice area of durham.
Both my wife and I did the commute thing from Mebane to Butner, working first at John Umstead Hospital, then at Central Regional Hospital, both of which are in Butner, tangentally. The drive isn't bad and helps to clear the mind after a days work, you get to pass over the lake twice a day and perhaps get to see the bald eagles. We liked living 25 miles out, it put a separation between our work and our lives and the drive gave us a chance to shift mental gears. Oh yeah, the speed limit, except in Durham, is 70 mph, it is a nice interstate.
There are some nicer safer parts of durham (closer to RTP) but there are other parts of durham I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I work in RTP. Some areas around here are nice.. I guess it would be considered southern durham/ morrisville area. Southpoint is the nice area of durham.
There are parts of durham downtown that I don't even want to drive through. Must be the slums of durham. I'll admit it has put a sour taste in my mouth for durham in general. I wouldn't feel safe in downtown but closer to RTP is perfectly fine. Alot to do there... i'd consider it urban but its in the more suburban parts of durham. So keep in mind the suburban areas... you won't know what you like until you visit.
Southpoint is the nice area of Durham? Nice if you like lots of shopping I guess, and traffic from the mall. I would beg to differ about it being the "nice part", as if there were no other nice parts. North Durham is wonderful - less shopping there, but more of a rural feel. And West Durham is a great part of the city, often overlooked. It's close to Duke and downtown, near Duke Forest and close to the Eno, with easy access to I-85 and the Durham Freeway.
Some of the area to the east of Downtown Durham is indeed sketchy in terms of crime - I'm guessing the poster above may have driven through there to get to the actual downtown durham (where there are things to do). But downtown itself has become quite nice: A beautiful ballpark, the amazing DPAC, nice restaurants and bars, the farmer's market, the Carolina Theater, etc. And there shouldn't be much that would bring you to the sketchy part, unless you accidentally get lost there going somewhere else.
Others have mentioned things to do - there's plenty. Facebook likes and rss subscriptions keep me abreast of all that's going on. I do agree that you won't know what you like until you come visit! Been here 11 yrs and LOVE it.
Pick up a copy of the Friday Herald Sun newspaper.
I noticed in our copy from last Friday they had about 2 pages worth of events & happenings in the area in the next few weeks.
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). I have no qualms with parking and walking around. Obviously you have to use common sense (lock your car, don't flash your cash, etc) but in downtown proper you shouldn't have issues. 
