A Weekend in Gatlinburg

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Hello TravelBlog community! This is my first blog on this site, and I figured I would kick it off with something close to home- My weekend trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee!

Gatlinburg, Tennessee: Spring 2019

Growing up in Tennessee, as early as I can remember, my family and I has spent at least one week out of every year vacationing in Gatlinburg. It was always my favorite week out of the year! Now that I am older, the family tradition has died down, but every now and then, my wife and I will still carry it on and snag a weekend getaway at a cabin.

Every time we have been to Gatlinburg, we have fallen for the tourist traps and never strayed away from the familiar, however, this year we decided to shake things up a little bit. Rather than stick to the usual, we decided to look to the maps and find some back roads and secret hideaways.

Friday March 15th

Normally, we would opt for a commercially run cabin chain, but this weekend we found the perfect AirBnb! We were still able to stay in a cabin with a view, save money, and keep out of reach of other tourists. It was like our own little slice of heaven.

Lucky for us, the weather was a perfect 70 degrees, so we immediately took advantage of it and headed out for a picnic in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. We found this amazing burger joint right outside of the entrance of the park (we had to wait 40 minutes to get our food but it was so worth it!) If you are ever in Gatlinburg, go check out Master Burger Drive-In!

That was about all we had time to do on Friday night, so we decided to head back to the cabin and relax.

Saturday March 16th

Originally, we had planned to get up early and seize the day, but accidentally slept in. Whoops!

By the time we got out and about, it was almost time for lunch so we stopped by Best Italian and had the best (no pun intended) calzone that we have ever had!

Trying to avoid being the stereotypical tourists, we decided to avoid all of the shops and Ripley's attractions and find some things to off the beaten path. Full on pizza and calzones, we headed straight into the heart of the mountains. After driving for some time, we found a side road that had a sign leading to a waterfall. Considering we both LOVE waterfalls, we decided to check it out. Eventually, we came up on a parking lot with only about 2 or 3 cars.

Relieved to see a lack of crowd, we hopped out of the car and began our endeavor!

We quickly realized that we may have gotten a little more than we bargained for when we hit the hour mark and no waterfall. At this point, we were too far in to turn around, but really wished that we had packed some waters or granola bars. Luckily, we came up on the water fall at an hour and 30 ish minutes, and let me tell you, that waterfall was beautiful! Looking back, I really wish I could remember the name of it, but I will never forget what it looked like!

The water was a bit too cold to take a swim, but we spent a good while at that spot by hanging up our hammocks and skipping rocks.

Sunday March 17th

We didn't really do anything on Sunday because we had to check out and hit the road pretty early, but overall, we had a better day and half exploring the unseen than we usually did during 5 days of touristy things. Hopefully we can go back soon and explore further!

On to our next adventure!

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