Gatlinburg and Western North Carolina - 2026
Is it possible to miss a place while you’re still there?
When I started writing this, I was sitting in my living room in Asheville (highly recommend The Lantern Lodge - conveniently located, spacious as hell and they have a washer-dryer!) with three hours to go until check out. Temperature in the high sixties with the door open to let the breeze in and a latte from Dripolator South in my hand.
I was about as content as I get and being in that moment, I was reminded again, as I often am now, that I am one of John Muir’s, "thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people” who “are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home.”
Summer vacation this year was leaving home in West Palm to find home in the Smoky Mountains and it was one of my favorite trips we’ve taken.
At A Glance
Route: Asheville, NC → Gatlinburg / Great Smoky Mountains, TN → Bryson City, NC → Asheville, NC
Total Distance: ~150 miles (excluding scenic loops)
Trip Duration: 7 Days
Best For: Family mountain travel, scenic drives, national park exploration, breweries and easy hikes.
The Beginning and the End: Asheville, NC
This was our fourth trip to Asheville and unfortunately, we did not get to spend enough time here on this jaunt. We flew in, spent the night, drove back, spent the night and flew out.
Luckily, Allegiant flies direct to Asheville from Palm Beach International (look, I’m never gonna call it by the new name. I like my amphitheaters Coral Sky and my airports PBI) at a relatively affordable rate so I’m already planning Spring Break 2027.
Our flight to Asheville was rerouted to Knoxville due to weather and the 90 minute delay put a damper on our initial dinner plans but we made the best of it.
We spent the night at Zelda Dearest - a gorgeous boutique hotel inspired by Zelda Fitzgerald and the 20s Jazz Age aesthetic. Comfortable, clean and quiet with a remarkably spacious bathroom, this was a shining light on a hill after a long travel day.
While this is definitely a space oriented towards adults (especially literary nerds who enjoy a good cocktail), we still felt welcome with Will in tow. However, I’m definitely making plans to return sans kid for our anniversary. Nothing personal, kid but sometimes, Mommy needs to sit quietly in a cocktail lounge, drink a gin cocktail and read a book.
Since we flew in and out of Asheville Regional Airport (small, well-staffed and easy to navigate), we ended up back in the city a day before our flight for an excellent lunch at Chai Pani (more on that below) and quality time at one of our favorite taprooms - Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.
It’s an enormous campus with brewing facilities, a full service restaurant, a garden where they grow food for the restaurant, a kid’s play area, bocce, firepits and every now and then, live music.
We were there in 2018 for my buddy’s birthday (look how well-rested we all look prior to having kids):
We were there in 2022 during an unseasonable cold snap where the temps hit the mid 20s and Will insisted on playing outside:
And again, on this trip where we got to see the garden in full bloom and Will made friends and built a giant tower together:
Asheville holds my heart in a way that I don’t fully understand. I don’t have any connection to the city; not really, but every time I’m there, it gets harder and harder to leave.
It all comes back to Muir again, as it usually does whenever I’m in a place where the only sounds are bird song, the wind rustling leaves and the sound of my own heartbeat:
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
The Drive: Crossing Great Smoky Mountains National Park
I am not a Car Girl, but I married a Car Guy.
How much of a car guy is my husband?
We currently have four cars on our driveway. Two of them actually work.
Once, he took my car in for a routine oil change and came home with a completely different vehicle.
We went to Germany a few years back and visited Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche, where this man rented a Targa, drove with the top down in December in near-freezing temperatures, and managed to get a ticket on the Autobahn.
So yeah - he’s a car guy, and he married someone who typically doesn’t give a shit what she drives as long as she can connect to Apple CarPlay.
We rented a huge Dodge Ram for this trip and having a truck in the mountains feels much safer than whipping around those curvy roads in a sedan. Will also loved being passenger prince in this beast.
We took the Blue Ridge Parkway to 441 through the Smoky Mountains National Park, a scenic two hour drive through lush forests and breathtaking overlooks while listening to my Mountain mix which features a lot of Americana, Dolly Parton, Angus and Julia Stone, Shakey Graves and Jason Isbell.
If Cameron Crowe has taught us anything, it’s that you’ve got to have a tailored soundtrack for all of life’s major moments.
Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN
It was raining when we arrived, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to the Hollywood Star Cars Museum on the Parkway. Will has been all about Ghostbusters lately (one of my proudest moments as a mom) and we figured seeing Ecto One in person would be cool.
The museum is small but well-maintained and if you’re a Millennial who appreciates both cars and movies, you’ll get a kick out of seeing not just the Ecto One, but the Delorean from Back to the Future, the Harley Fat Boy from Terminator 2 and the Jeep from Twister as well as the Batmobile from Batman Returns.
Pro-Mom Tip: Watch the movies you loved with your kids. Will runs around saying, “Ray, if someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes,” all the time and it' never fails to amuse me.
Do you guys remember Batman Returns? Yeah, it’s a weird, kinda fucked up movie and I’m actually really excited about watching it with my son.
Being the co-host of a comedy-pro wrestling podcast, I would be remiss if I didn’t visit the Hulk Hogan’s Wrestling Store in nearby Pigeon Forge.
This was not a planned visit. We literally drove past it and I went, “Holy shit, is that a Hulk Hogan store? We have to stop!”
Note the hoodie. I maintain that one of the reasons that Hogan was so “great” is that he had a better foil in Rowdy Roddy Piper. RIP Hot Rod.
Visiting the Hulk Hogan store just reaffirmed what I have always believed - that Ring the Damn Bell and I are proudly Team Sheiky Baby.
Will has been into rocks since before he could toddle and now, I have to meticulously check his pockets before doing laundry because guess who found a shitload of pebbles in her lint trap and lost her goddamn mind as a result?
This part of the country is rife with gem mining tourist traps, so I made a deal with my son - he could do some gem mining if I got to do something I liked to at the same time.
I figured this would keep me safe - I mean, I like spicy food, bougie cocktails and books. No way would those things ever Venn Diagram…and they didn’t, but I forgot one thing.
My love of adorable animals.
Which is how we ended up at Goats on the Roof where I got to make kissy faces at adorable goats…
…And we his father, who encourages such shenans, paid $50 for two Home Depot buckets of sand and rocks.
I feel like you’re not really taking the journey with me here.
A full Ulysses S. Grant for two buckets of sand and rocks.
You know, the shit that’s in my yard for free?
That sand. Those rocks.
The same rocks which put us three pounds over the weight limit for our checked luggage and I had to subsequently lug around in my purse.
You know, the older I get, the more I understand Marge Simpson.
All in all, Gatlinburg is Myrtle Beach and Orlando in the mountains. If you are looking for a relatively clean, efficient and family-friendly albeit hyper commercialized town featuring endless mini-golf, t-shirt shops and pancakes joints, all served up with a country twang - you will love Gatlinburg.
John and I at Ole Red, Blake Shelton’s megalopolis chain bar and restaurant. You know Blake Shelton - Gwen Stefani’s husband? People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive that year that every other man on the planet died.
I like exactly one of those things and do not fuck with cotton candy wine nor Trump stores so I will likely never go back to Gatlinburg again…unless it’s to visit The Heirloom Room (more on that below).
Luckily, the natural beauty of the area is spectacular and escaping into the mountains is relatively easy, so that’s what we did.
Smoky Mountain National Park
The one thing I really wanted to do while in the Smokies was drive the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail - a 5.5 mile narrow and winding road which offers lots of opportunities to pull off and explore cabins, trails and waterfalls.
Gatlinburg is known for its black bear population - so much so that they’re often spotted down the Parkway, meandering in and out of restaurants and bars. Luckily, we didn’t encounter one outside of Jason Aldean’s Try That in A Small Town Bar, Grill and Library but we did see one on the trail.
They’re a lot smaller than I thought they would be, but given the fact that they can run, swim and climb and have Ginsu knives attached to the ends of their fuzzy little paws, this is about as close as I ever want to get to the adorable little beasties.
My favorite part of the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is the Place of a Thousand Drips - a casacding waterfall at the very end of the trail.
We did a little clambering on the rocks - Will and John are essentially mountain goats who hop from rock to rock without any hesitation and I am…not.
A word about hiking.
It’s hard.
We intentionally seek out easy trails but it’s still hard for me.
In addition to having soft tissue damage in my feet, I also have rheumatoid arthritis, so my default setting is handling pain. I’m on Embrel (which means jabbing a spring-injected sewing needle deep into my stomach every week) but that only does so much.
My pace is slower, I navigate the path much more gingerly than John or Will do and I don’t clamber up rocks, but I do it because you only get one life and a handful of moments like this.
There will come a time - hopefully not soon - when I won’t be able to handle the easy trails and I want to be able to look back and remember the viewpoints, the vistas and the sheer joy in my son’s voice.
“Because in the end you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
Kuwohi
Formerly known as Clingman’s Dome, Kuwohi is Cherokee for “Mulberry Place” and being the highest point in Smoky Mountains National Park, it’s supposed to have an incredible view…on a clear day.
They’re called the Smoky Mountains for a reason and although the view from the top was essentially non-existent, I’m really glad we decided to go on this mini adventure.
The trail is short, but it’s tough (listed as moderate by AllTrails)
It’s only half a mile, but it has a steep incline and a 337ft elevation gain and trust me - you feel every single one of those feet trudging up.
It’s important to challenge yourself and do the hard thing. Even if the results don’t pan out the way you hope they will, the journey to get to the top can be pretty great.
The area around the observation tower looked like something out of a fairy tale and thanks to the Fraser firs growing in the area, it smelled incredible.
Also, Will got to clamber on some rocks with his dad while I stayed on the ground, racked with anxiety, so that was fun for one of us!
Bryson City and Cherokee, NC
We told a server we were headed to Bryson City after Gatlinburg and he looked at us utterly perplexed and asked why.
Having never been there before, I didn’t have an answer for him but now I do - because Bryson City is super cute and I would definitely visit it again.
A small town of less than 2000 people and known mostly for the Smoky Mountains Railroad, our initial plan was to hop on the train up to the mountains but when we arrived, we decided we’d much rather explore for ourselves.
Firstly, there’s a town called Elder’s which tickled Will to no end because hi, that’s his last name in giant letters on a storefront.
Mingo Falls
Mingo Falls is a short hike (mostly up stairs) with a great payoff and only half an hour from where we were staying, so we figured it would be a fun way to start the day.
One of the most moving aspects of visiting this area was seeing Cherokee syllabary on local road signs, public facilities and storefronts. This region of Western North Carolina is home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, whose ancestors were historically the largest of the southern native tribes.
It was my first time seeing dual-language Indigenous signage like this integrated into a community, and I would love to see more representation like this across the country. I’m always searching for books and podcasts on regional history, so if you have recommendations on the history of the Cherokee people, send them my way!
Back to the falls - you climb 161 wooden steps (about a third of a mile) and you’re greeted by this beautiful 120ft high waterfall.
100% worth it and if I’m ever back in the area, I can’t wait to do it again.
On the way back from the falls, we drove through the Oconaluftee Area and saw a whole family of elk crossing the road.
The calves look so much like my 100-pound dog back home that I had to repeatedly remind myself that wild mountain elk would not appreciate the pets, baby talk and smothering attention I lavish on my boy.
Smokemont Loop Trail
Floridians can deal with a lot things - truly wretched politicians, the I4 corridor, a convicted felon insisting on his name being slapped all over everything in my county, mosquitos the size of hummingbirds - but one thing we do not mess around with lightning.
We average a little over a million lightning strikes every year, so whenever I hear thunder - I’m militant about getting back inside as fast as possible.
Even though it’s a six mile moderate loop trail, the Smokemont Loop Trail starts off relatively flat and runs parallel to the river so we figured we’d go until we didn’t want to go any further and turn back.
We walked alongside butterflies, successfully dodged mud and horse manure, and were having a peaceful stroll until about a half-mile in, when we heard the unmistakable low rumble of mountain thunder. Downpour imminent. We turned right back around.
Bryson City is a charming town with great coffee
I had the Haze Creek Black Water latte - chocolate, blackberry, hazelnut, and cocoa - and the Appalachian Magic latte - real peanut butter and raspberry at La Dolce Vita and both were amazing. Also, they have homemade rainbow cookies that taste better than any Italian bakery here in Florida)
and really lovely people.
If you’re ever meandering around Western North Carolina and feel like stopping to stretch your legs and grab a cup of coffee, try to do it in Bryson City.
Skinny Dip Falls
On the way back to Asheville, we figured we’d do a small hike before lunch. The last one of the trip to stretch our legs a little and take in some mountain air.
Skinny Dip Falls is about halfway between Bryson City and Asheville, so it’s the perfect place for one last hurrah.
A relatively easy hike of 0.9 miles that starts across the street from the Looking Glass Rock Overlook, you walk via the Mountain To Sea trail through a forest and emerge in a paradise of small falls and swimming holes.
Standing in places like this stops you cold. All you’re left with is profound gratitude:
Gratitude for the ability to take trips like this.
Gratitude for uninterrupted time spent with the people you love most.
Gratitude for a body that keeps going despite pain.
Gratitude for every drop of clean mountain water and every ray of sunshine sparkling across it.
Gratitude for every single conservationist and advocate fighting to protect these public lands.
Life can and will grind you down if you let it, but in moments like this, it’s hard not to feel like the luckiest bastard alive.
Did Y’all Eat?
While Asheville is world-renowned for eating and drinking well (boasting roughly 17 craft breweries for every 50,000 residents), I wasn’t expecting much culinary magic from Gatlinburg. I had one exceptional meal there and a couple of decent ones.
I wrote longer reviews from the best meals from this trip over on One Mouthy Sandwich Girl:
Here is how the rest of our road trip meals stacked up:
Gatlinburg Brewing Company
Gatlinburg, TN
Will’s favorite pizza is pepperoni and pineapple and since the Gatlinburg Brewing Company doesn’t do half toppings on their pies, we ordered a pineapple pie with pepperoni on the side.
Solid coal-fired pies with a crispy, chewy crust and legitimately spicy crushed chili flake.
Gatlinburg Brewing Company
Gatlinburg, TN
I washed it down with a very refreshing dragonfruit sangria seltzer and had a pretty great night.
Five Oaks Farm Kitchen
Sevierville, TN
You can’t swing a cat without hitting a pancake joint in the Smokies. This dates back to the logging days of the early 1900s and the fact that pancakes are affordable, easy to make and easier to feed to a crowd.
John and I have been trying to eat more fiber lately, so we were all about buckwheat pancakes on this trip. They’re delicious, high in insoluble fiber, contain soluble fiber and have a low glycemic index.
Mom Pro-Tip: Split the pancake orders. The portions are gargantuan, and unless you spend your afternoons physically chopping timber, there is no way you'll finish a full stack.
Five Oaks Farm Kitchen
Sevierville, TN
Will ordered the pancake from the kid’s menu and it was the fluffiest, softest, butteriest pancake on the planet. He ate three bites.
I will always want to get chips, salsa and skinny margaritas and if I ever say no to this, you can safely assume I’m being held hostage. Two tomato-based salsas, both mild, and a lip-tinglingly spicy habañero sauce (you have to ask for it), thin and crispy tortilla chips and a light, refreshing cocktail to enjoy while listening to live music. It’s pretty close to perfect.
Native Brews Tap & Grill
Cherokee, NC
Indigenous woman-owned, Native Brews makes an excellent blooming onion. It comes with spicy ranch but I highly recommend getting a side of the Nashville Hot Sauce - it’s spicy, oily, thick and should be the requisite condiment for all dishes because ketchup is trash.
Pasqualino's Italian Restaurant
Bryson City, NC
There’s an old joke about how the problem with Italian food is that you’re hungry three or four days later. Pasqualino's takes this to heart with sizable portions, soft breadsticks served with an olive oil-balsamic dip, a decent wine list and something I rarely see on menus - vegetable lasagna. It was stuffed with broccoli and mushrooms and while I don’t usually care for the latter, I ate every damn one in this dish. Exactly what a girl needs after a long day outside.
Bryson City Outdoors
Bryson City, NC
Bryson City Outdoors is my favorite spot in Bryson City. I got a sour cherry cider and a pair of Tevas for my son and came thisclose to buying a bunch of candles until I realize I would have to lug them home. I wish places like this existed everywhere.
The Takeaway
Travel is a deeply subjective thing.
Some people love the idea of spending a week at Disney - hitting up the rides, eating Dole Whip and watching the nightly fireworks - but that’s not for me. I don’t have any nostalgia towards Mickey, neither does my husband and Will isn’t a “Disney Kid” - right now, he’s more a World Cup kid and loves rattling off statistics about Vinicius Jr. and Jude Bellingham.
Some people love the idea of an all-inclusive resort - lounging by a communal pool, drinking neon tropical drinks and making decisions no more complex than what to wear to dinner. I’m not that person either. I have a pool in my backyard and my personal "100-pound dog in the pool" policy is far more lenient than theirs.
Some people are cruise people which…nope. Can’t do it, won’t do it. The ocean is terrifying and I don’t care how many ice cream machines and bars you put on an oversized dinghy. I’m not willingly putting myself in it so Poseidon or norovirus can wreck my shit.
I love the way we travel - seeking out places and experiences that we wouldn’t find at home. Small towns and interesting cities. Great food, breweries, wineries and the wild wonder of nature - and I hope we’re imparting this unto our son who has been tagging along on our adventures since he was six months old.
Being a Bourdain fan - especially in terms of travel and food - has become even more of a cliche since his death, but goddamn if the man wasn’t right.
“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.”
