Smoky Mountain National Park Area Camping
Hi--we have a trip planned for the 1st week of August to the Smokies and are looking for a good campground to explore the area. We want something centrally located that we can use as a home base and ...
Forum Discussion
If you like tourists, stores, traffic, entertainment, theme parks (Dolly Land), traffic, stop lights, more traffic, etc....then Pidgeon Forge & Gatlinburg is it. The craziness is worth a day trip once to see what I mean. If you have kids then this is even more of a place to consider as they have tons of entertainment sites.
We prefer Townsend. Quiet creek side RV sites, easy in to Smokies, much less traffic, and you are 30 min country road to Pidgeon Forge if ya want it. In fact we also like Wears Valley that is halfway between the two. There is a back road into the Smokies from Wears Valley that is little known and helps too. In Oct we stayed at Cove Creek Resort in Wears Valley. It was nice and peaceful, nothing creek side...though they have a stream past the park but it isn't anything. No shade there so it wouldn't be my August choice. Most of the campsites in Townsend are shady.
We prefer Townsend. Quiet creek side RV sites, easy in to Smokies, much less traffic, and you are 30 min country road to Pidgeon Forge if ya want it. In fact we also like Wears Valley that is halfway between the two. There is a back road into the Smokies from Wears Valley that is little known and helps too. In Oct we stayed at Cove Creek Resort in Wears Valley. It was nice and peaceful, nothing creek side...though they have a stream past the park but it isn't anything. No shade there so it wouldn't be my August choice. Most of the campsites in Townsend are shady.
