Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg "Do's and Don'ts"

Our family has visited the Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg area a number of times and we always leave saying we'll be back.

Since we have visited several times, we've begun to compile a list of "do's and don'ts" regarding a visit to the Smokies.  This list is really just my opinion. You may have other tips. Feel free to share below.

Do:

• If you can afford it, skip the hotel on the strip and consider renting a cabin. We've stayed at Dollywood Vacations, Star-crest Resort, Sugar Maple Cabins, and The Preserve Resort. By staying in a cabin, you can cook your own food and enjoy great views and activities during your down time. It sure beats stuffing the family in a one-or-two room hotel.
• Visit the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I'm amazed at how many people never make it past Gatlinburg. The park is beautiful...and it's free!!!
• Climb to the top of Clingman's Dome in the park. It's a hike, but the view is worth it.
• Visit the Foothills Parkway on the west end of the park. Great views, fewer crowds, and totally worth the drive.
• If you plan to spend your time in the carnival atmosphere of the Parkway in Pigeon Forge or the main drag in Gatlinburg, bring lots of cash. You can burn $100 in less than 5 minutes.
• Paid destinations we found to be a great value: Ripley's Aquarium, Cirque de Chine, Applewood Farms, Dixie Stampede.
• Plan lots of picnic lunches. Whether in the National Park or on the strip, you'll save a ton of dough by packing your lunch. Our favorite picnic spot in Pigeon Forge is Liberty Park next to the Old Mill Restaurant.

Don'ts:

• Avoid arriving on Saturday afternoon / evening. The traffic is the worst. Think "travel one mile in one hour" type of traffic.
• Avoid the Walmart on the parkway for grocery shopping.  There are several other grocery stores off the strip that are less crowded. Try the Kroger on Rt. 321, Light #3.
• Don't forget good walking shoes. There is lots to see and a lot of walking. Flip flops don't cut it.

I'll update this list as more things come to mind. If you have tips you'd like to add, just post below.

Smoky Mountain "must see": Foothills Parkway

The entrance to Foothills Parkway
from Rt. 321

If you want great views of the Smoky Mountains without the fuss and hassle of all the crowds and cranky drivers, we may have an option for you to try.

The Smoky Mountain Foothills Parkway is a hidden gem on the west side of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. While the kabillions of tourists flock to the attractions in the center of the park like Laurel Falls, Cades Cove and Clingman's Dome, we found the Foothills Parkway to offer extraordinary views with very little traffic.

To find the Foothills Parkway, you have to travel west out of Pigeon Forge on Rt. 321. Go all the way to Townsend and then keep going for about 10 more minutes. It's about a half-hour away from the Parkway in Pigeon Forge, but the drive is beautiful and well worth the effort.

Look Rock

Don't miss the path to climb up
to the Look Rock tower.

One of the key features on the parkway are several parking areas that feature spectacular views of both the Smoky Mountains to the east and south, as well as the region to the west of the park.  You can tell when the designers of the parkway were planning this route, they expected the same type of crowds you will find stopping at Laurel Falls or Cades Cove. But incredibly, there was hardly anyone out here with us, and we were here at peak season right before the July 4th weekend.

Look Rock is about midway through the drive. When you arrive, you'll find a nice viewing stand near the parking area. But don't miss the crosswalk that takes you a half-mile further up the mountain side to the Look Rock viewing Tower. From here you can take in an incredible view on a clear day. We were fortunate. The haze wasn't too bad. We were able to see as far away as Knoxville to the west while able to take in Mount Le Conte and Clingman's Dome to the east.

Look Rock Tower

Following our visit to look rock, the rest of the ride south provides beautiful views and you wind up at Chilhowee Lake created by Fontana Dam. We wound up having a picnic along the water. During our rest, we noticed the damage caused earlier by an EF4 tornado that ripped through the western part of the park. The damage is pretty extensive, but the park is so big, the scope of the damage appears relatively small.

Recommendation
If you are coming all the way to the Smokies for vacation, we'd recommend that you invest the time to visit the Foothills Parkway. The views are worth the drive....and it's free!

Panoramic view from Look Rock Tower
Smokies to the left, Maryville to the right.

Exploring at Tuckaleechee Caverns

Vicki & the boys @Tuckaleechee
Visitor Center

If you are up for a moderate adventure on your trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, you may want to set aside some time visit the Tuckaleechee Caverns.

For our family, we can only take so much of the Parkway drama in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. So on our second day at The Preserve Resort near Townsend, I pulled up Google Places on my iPad.

(Note: If you haven't tried Google Places, it is a great location-based mobile site / app that allows you to find nearby attractions that may wind up being hidden gems. Gotta love mobile technology.)

Look close: Can you see the woman
in a flowing dress (dead center)

Tuckaleechee Caverns is about a 10 minute drive away from where we are staying and maybe 25 minutes from Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg.

Moderate adventure
We've been to a couple of cave tours in our day, namely Ohio Caverns in East Liberty, Ohio, but nothing that compares to the scale of Tuckaleechee caverns. It's hard to believe this cave was found decades ago by bored 6 and 8-year-old (!).

They say this is about
30,000 yrsold. No touchy!

You know right from the start you are in for a treat when you have to walk down 87 pretty narrow steps to get into the cave. Oh, and that's after you walk into the basement of the Tuckaleechee Caverns visitor center.  There are two main areas of the Caverns. The first is an up and down hike that will take you into a vast chamber that measures 300 x 300 x 400 feet. You could fit a football field in this chamber, up, down and all around.  In here, they shut off the lights to show you just how dark that dark can be. Hard to imagine those little boys explored all of that area with small lanterns!

This is the huge cavern. See the
little man in the middle. It's about
300 x 300 x 400 ft

There are a number of gorgeous rock formations to take in as part of the trail. The imagination doesn't have to run too wild to see things in the shadows, but you never feel like you are alone or in danger. The tour is well lit, but you will want to wear your tennis shoes and hang onto the rails.

The second part of the tour is much more flat and takes you to several waterfalls and springs. At one point, they even let you take a sip of the water that is running in the underground stream that help create these caverns. BEST WATER EVER!

Great Value
Like most attractions in the Smokies that aren't in the National Park, you have to pay-to-see. But this is a pretty good value. For $81, our family of five took the tour. It last over an hour and fifteen minutes and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.  Another perk is that on a hot summer day or a cold winter day, it's a moderate 58 degrees Fahrenheit all the time.

Recommendation
Our family gave the Tuckaleechee Caverns "thumbs up" all the way around. It was a great little "adventure" to begin our week of vacation in the Smokies. We'd recommend it to families that are mobile. There are so many steps that this can't be recommended for folks who are immobile. Definitely no wheelchair access. We saw many families with small kids and it didn't seem to be a problem.