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The most popular part of the park is Cade's Cove, which is in Tennessee and is where the Visitors Center is.
Gatlinburg is where most people have extended stays while visiting the Great Smoky Mountain NP, unless they are camping in the park. Gatlinburg is the main entrance to GSMNP for most people visiting.
Knoxville TN, pop 190,000 is 1 hour to Cades Cove.
Asheville NC, pop 95,000 is 3 hours to Cades Cove.
Cades Cove is 4 hours from Nashville TN, 5 hours from Columbia SC, and 6-7 hours from Raleigh Durham, NC.
I can't find any stats on annual visitors to GSMNP by state.
FWIW, fall foliage is more spectacular in North Carolina.
Last edited by Igor Blevin; 04-29-2023 at 03:04 PM..
Not sure, but Tennessee seems to be more focused on tourism. Tennessee is trying to become the nevada of the east, it seems. Get tourists, fleece them, use tourist money to pay bills and keep taxes low for residents. Rinse, repeat.
Peak visitation months differ in the two areas. July is the highest visitation month for the Tennessee side, while October is most popular on the North Carolina side.
The Tennessee side of the national park is famous for its many attractions and tourist towns located right outside of the park, such as Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. According to Brent McDaniel, a member of Friends of the Smokies, visitation rates are higher on the Tennessee side of the park.
“Gatlinburg is a really heavily trafficked, tourist-based community. So they’ve got a lot of restaurants and attractions, like Ripley’s, and the aquarium, and Dollywood, and that kind of thing,” McDaniel says.
However, while Asheville and Knoxville are similar distances from the park, and serve as major gateway communities, more people travel from Knoxville than Asheville to visit the Smokies.
“People in Asheville kind of identify the [Blue Ridge] Parkway as their park, and less so with the Smokies, even though it is just as close as Knoxville is,” McDaniel says. “So we don’t get a whole lot of traffic from Asheville the way we do traffic from Knoxville.”
Not sure, but Tennessee seems to be more focused on tourism. Tennessee is trying to become the nevada of the east, it seems. Get tourists, fleece them, use tourist money to pay bills and keep taxes low for residents. Rinse, repeat.
That would be Florida. Your participation prize is not in the mail.
Tennessee is more about the Smoky Mountains while North Carolina is very much about the Blue Ridge Mountains, and there is a definite cultural difference as well.
Tennessee is more about the Smoky Mountains while North Carolina is very much about the Blue Ridge Mountains, and there is a definite cultural difference as well.
Technically, the Great Smoky Mountains are a part/subregion of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a part of the Appalachian Mountains range.
The geological definition of the Blue Ridge province extends westward to the Ridge and Valley area, encompassing the Great Smoky Mountains, the Great Balsams, the Roans, the Blacks, the Brushy Mountains (a "spur" of the Blue Ridge) and other mountain ranges.
There are actually four VC's, Sugarlands, Oconaluftee, Cades Cove, and Clingmans Dome.
Thanks for the update.
I have been to Clingman's Dome. Slow walk to the top at my age but the snowclad trees were fabulous. That was fall last year. A freak early snowstorm blanketed everything in white, and it was just stunning. I got lucky.
I imagine the road is closed in the winter when things are usually white, but I may be wrong about that. Maybe you know.
I have been to Clingman's Dome. Slow walk to the top at my age but the snowclad trees were fabulous. That was fall last year. A freak early snowstorm blanketed everything in white, and it was just stunning. I got lucky.
I imagine the road is closed in the winter when things are usually white, but I may be wrong about that. Maybe you know.
Yep, the Clingmans Dome VC is closed from December 1st to April 10th and the road to Clingmans Dome is closed from December 1st to March 31st. The road could close before December 1st and still be closed after March 31st, depending on the weather.
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