Smoky Mountains Recs

[Anonymous]

We are renting a house in the Smoky Mountains.
Things we’ve come up with so far:
Hiking/park days
Dollywood
Pigeon Forge (mixed reviews?)
Anything else? What about restaurants? Specific hikes?

[Anonymous]

Just came back from there a week ago. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are both tourist traps but with a completely different character. In Gatlinburg you park downtown and walk around. Shops and restaurants. There are several activities that you ride a tram up a hill to get to. Pretty unique. Pigeon forge is more like the Outer Banks where most things are along the main highway. Lots of mini-golf, escape rooms, and things of that ilk.

My favorite hike was Porters Creek Trail up to the waterfall. Most trails are along creeks and many have waterfalls so you can’t go wrong. I would have liked to have done more challenging hikes but my 6 year old isn’t ready yet.

The one place I would not go back to in the park was Cades Cove. It is an 11-mile one way driving loop. You are very likely to see bears in the fields. However, the traffic is mind-numbing. You can’t get past people other than a few places, so anytime there is a bear, it just grinds to a halt. And I was there on a Tuesday while most schools were still in session. I can’t fathom it on a weekend in the summer. They do close it down to only cyclists on Wednesdays and honestly that seems perfect.

[Anonymous]

We thought AnakeestA was pretty cool.

Beyond the Lens and Wonderworks were also fun for a rainy day.

[Anonymous]

White water rafting is fun

[Anonymous]

Any food recs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just came back from there a week ago. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are both tourist traps but with a completely different character. In Gatlinburg you park downtown and walk around. Shops and restaurants. There are several activities that you ride a tram up a hill to get to. Pretty unique. Pigeon forge is more like the Outer Banks where most things are along the main highway. Lots of mini-golf, escape rooms, and things of that ilk.

My favorite hike was Porters Creek Trail up to the waterfall. Most trails are along creeks and many have waterfalls so you can’t go wrong. I would have liked to have done more challenging hikes but my 6 year old isn’t ready yet.

The one place I would not go back to in the park was Cades Cove. It is an 11-mile one way driving loop. You are very likely to see bears in the fields. However, the traffic is mind-numbing. You can’t get past people other than a few places, so anytime there is a bear, it just grinds to a halt. And I was there on a Tuesday while most schools were still in session. I can’t fathom it on a weekend in the summer. They do close it down to only cyclists on Wednesdays and honestly that seems perfect.

We loved Cade’s cove. You are supposed to get out and tour the old buildings and go fo hikes, not just drive and look for bears. You can spend hours and we loved it even with traffic.

[Anonymous]

Dollywood was a lot of fun. Make sure you get the cinnamon bread. I also loved Cade’s Cove, even with the traffic. We saw a bear family just feet from our minivan — so cool! There are tons of great hikes in the park. I loved all of them. It’s worth it to get a guidebook for the trails. Enjoy your trip!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just came back from there a week ago. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are both tourist traps but with a completely different character. In Gatlinburg you park downtown and walk around. Shops and restaurants. There are several activities that you ride a tram up a hill to get to. Pretty unique. Pigeon forge is more like the Outer Banks where most things are along the main highway. Lots of mini-golf, escape rooms, and things of that ilk.

My favorite hike was Porters Creek Trail up to the waterfall. Most trails are along creeks and many have waterfalls so you can’t go wrong. I would have liked to have done more challenging hikes but my 6 year old isn’t ready yet.

The one place I would not go back to in the park was Cades Cove. It is an 11-mile one way driving loop. You are very likely to see bears in the fields. However, the traffic is mind-numbing. You can’t get past people other than a few places, so anytime there is a bear, it just grinds to a halt. And I was there on a Tuesday while most schools were still in session. I can’t fathom it on a weekend in the summer. They do close it down to only cyclists on Wednesdays and honestly that seems perfect.

We loved Cade’s cove. You are supposed to get out and tour the old buildings and go fo hikes, not just drive and look for bears. You can spend hours and we loved it even with traffic.

+1000

I was there two years ago and loved checking out the old buildings.

[Anonymous]

The whole place is basically Ocean City or Myrtle Beach without the actual beach. It's fine. We went there once and probably won't go back.

If you do go there, I recommend you spend a night or two at the Biltmore house in Asheville NC. It's only a couple hours from Pigeon Forge. We stayed at the "village Hotel" when we were there. It was pretty fun. There's a cool tour you take of the Bilmore House. Make sure you get the audiot tour.

https://www.biltmore.com/

[Anonymous]

We went last fall and I am shocked by how much our entire family (boys 1, 5, 9) loved it. Gatlinburg is very touristy but it was easy enough to avoid that if it's not your scene. We did lots of hikes, our two favorites were Alum Cave (5 miles) and Grotto Falls (3 miles). We did Cades Cove and agree if you get out to explore it's a lot of fun. We also did Dollywood one day and I loved it, we have season passes to Kings Dominion and Dollywood blows it away, cleaner and some really fun rides. We mostly cooked at our rental because it was deep in Covid times. We did get take out from Bennett's BBQ, it was ok, better than Famous Daves not as good as a local place. Mama Chicken Kitchen got good reviews, I wasn't impressed, a step up from KFC but nothing to brag about.