SW Louisiana to North Carolina Fall Foliage

You will find many more campground vacancies on the NC side of the Smokeys. Same mountains, much less traffic.

As to timing, you will never find colors everywhere, but you will always find colors somewhere. It's just a matter of finding the elevation that has colors near where you are.

We will go to Whittier, NC 3rd week in October as we always do. Sometimes there are colors in the campground, sometimes we have to go to the top, and last year the best color was on the BR Parkway.

Trying to pick the peak time/date is difficult to near impossible. In the mountains of GA (Yes we have great fall colors) it used to be mid October but in recent years the peak has been at the end of October. With this summer being cooler and wetter (more like the long term norm) not like recent years...my educated guess is Oct 21 for the peak. :B

My point is it may take more than 10 days to have the peak colors in any given area. Vogel SP is GA's most popular SP and other than weekends you can still get into it in October and no problem in early November.

First of all you need to find a place to stay and book it very soon. Very busy part of the season. Most popular campgrounds in the Smokies will be booked already.