Great Smoky Mountains National Park
add photos10 Reviews for Great Smoky Mountains National Park
36
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"Ahhhhh-mazing!!"
Wow, talk about getting away from it all....this is the place to be! We rented a cute little cabin for the week and went hiking in the Smokies the first chance we got. The kids (who were 9 and 12 at the time) absolutely loved being on the mountain. We climbed the Laurel Falls trail which was just right for the kids, not too strenuous, lots of pretty views, and the waterfalls at the end of the hike (for motivational purposes). It was incredibly beautiful and definitely not a sight to be missed!
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"Gatlinburg "
Great scenic views, mountains, rides and great family fun, great food and loads of activities Beautiful snow in winter to ski in and great pools at all hotels fabulous foods every where you turn and so many varieties of all kinds of food you will love.
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"Smoky mountains park"
I cant say enough about this place. It is wonderful me and my family always come here at least once a year to go camping. it is beautiful any time of the year with plenty of trails and wildlife to see, we even had deer coming to our camp sight which my children really enjoyed it is free and really exciting to see the waterfalls and the rocks hanging overhead.
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"Lot's of Hiking!"
We go camping in the Great Smoky Mountains a few times every year and love it. The air seems clean, clear and crisp. There are lots of hiking trails and beautiful senery. We love to take a drive on Cades Cove and see all the animals. We've seen bears, deer and so much more. If you go in October, prepare for the crowds. People come in droves to the mountain to see the beautiful colors of the changing leaves. It is beautiful! The Smokeys are really close to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and there's lots to do there. These two towns are a bit of a tourist trap, but lots of fun!
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"BRING WATER!"
Bring something to drink and eat. There are NO pop machines for miles and miles. It's a gorgeous drive or even hike if you choose. Go to the bathroom at the last traffic light because it's a while before the next stop. Take a camera. There are a lot of places to pull off and have fun and take pictures.
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"Great free family fun!"
We took our kids to the park to go for a hike and ended up making wonderful family memories. After hiking and finding the waterfall our boys wanted to go looking for more. Bring lots of water and make sure to stop into the visitor center. They have maps and lots of information for Bear safety.
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"Wonderful!"
This is a great national park just to get out and enjoy. There are lots of opportunities for hiking/camping/exploring. And during the fall with leaves at their peak - it is breathtaking (though can be crowded)! Plus - it is close to lots of cities for shopping/playing!
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"Wonderful Park!"
This park is wonderful! Around the Gatlinburg area there are several very easy to access hiking trails that are handicap accessible - which meant that our very small kids could walk the entire trail. Our just turned 2 year old walked several of these 1 mile trails with no problems. Very safe, very nice. Don't miss this park!
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"If I had to spend the rest of my life..."
... on a single acre of land, I'd pick somewhere in GSMNP.
Reviewing the park is like reviewing all Hollywood movies since 1950 -- it varies from boring to magnificent, but there's gotta be something here for nearly everyone. Its chief advantage, which will also be its downfall, is that it's FREE -- the only national park that is, as far as I know. It's kept up well, but its narrow roads get overloaded in the summer time and during the changing leaf show in the fall.
The Smokies aren't geographically awesome, like the Rockies or the Tetons. They're all below the timberline, and the highest point in the park (Clingman's Dome) is only 6600 feet. But they are most definitely mountains, and what they lack in craggy peaks they make up for in lush river valleys. The key attraction of the Smokies is the life, not the land; this is the most biologically diverse area in the country. You'll notice a wide variety of trees and undergrowth, and they change as you go up in elevation. There are lots of creeks and shallow rivers, but no lakes to speak of. Plenty of wildlife -- deer are almost as plentiful as squirrels, bears are fairly common (and wild -- respect them), and there are even elk and wolves (but don't count on seeing them). There are virtually always wildflowers in bloom somewhere, and they're gorgeous everywhere in the spring. And if you hit the right time of the fall, the leaf change is eye-popping. If you value history over nature, there are many preserved buildings a century or more old, and many more in ruins; an entire community has been preserved in Cade's Cove.
There are hundreds of miles of trails varying from strenuous climbs to Sunday strolls, including a long segment of the Appalachian Trail. There are many shelters and open campsites and even a couple of RV parks; space is limited and popular, but you can and had better make reservations. There are many different areas in the park, and not many are directly connected by roads -- to get to many of them you have to leave and come back in a different entrance. Some are rather remote, thus less crowded. The main highway cuts directly through the park from Gatlinburg TN to Cherokee NC, and if you like to look at vistas from your car, that's your road; otherwise most of the good stuff is a little harder to get to. There are several picnic areas with toilets, places where you can tube on the river, lots and lots of places to let the kids walk around and splash their feet in clear cold water, and three or four welcome centers where you can get maps, souvenirs, and advice from rangers.
I don't think there are any places in the park to buy food, but you're never very far from them. Gatlinburg is a relatively pleasant nest of hotels, restaurants, souvenirs, and junk food. Pigeon Forge/Sevierville is a tacky tourist trap on steroids, which I avoid every chance I get, but you'll see that a lot of other people seem to like it and I think you can buy literally anything there. Cherokee strikes me as a sort of much smaller, run-down mixture of the two, but I've not done more than drive through it and might be judging it unfairly.
Sadly, it's less beautiful than it used to be. Some of the high-elevation fir forests have been ravaged by an imported insect pest, and now a new one is going after the hemlocks in the lowlands as the Park Service does its best to contain it. But if you've never been there before you won't know that, and it's still pretty special. Did I mention that I love this park?
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"Beauty Personified"
What more is there to say? The mountains are beautiful, the streams are clear and cold, the animals and the flowers are wild and in their (mostly) natural habitats. The park is great for a drive, a hike, a picnic, or any other kind of visit you can think of. Especially wonderful for those who have never seen mountains!
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