I'm headed to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area for a week camping trip for our anniversary. I'm looking for :
Things to do
Things to see
Restaurants - no chains, i can find them anywhere
We've been there before for a short stay and saw some of the major stuff (Cades cove, Clingmans Dome, etc.) We've would like to see more of the scenery and not tourist traps.
But more importantly - THE FOOD!
If there is any members near there, they will have local knowledge.??
Oh, and maybe some car related stuff too wouldn't hurt if I happened to just stumble upon it.
Happy Anniversary.
As sort of a "local" (we're about an hour and a half away from Pigeon Forge), I'm getting a chuckle out of some of
the replies - but understand, we typically don't go within a country mile of that whole corridor a good part of the year...
Too crowded for my taste, unfortunately.
Depending on which source you trust, somewhere in the range of 15 million visitors per year go through the Sevierville/
Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg corridor, many on their way to the most visited national park in the country - The Great Smoky
Mountains.
Well over a $1Billion in tourist money spent through there and there's TONS of ways to spend it down there.
The list of restaurants is endless, as are all the other amenities.
Yes, Floyd Garrett passed away about 4 years ago and had closed his museum right before passing on (many don't know
that most of the cars were actually owned by others, including folks like Ted Stephens and such - although Floyd was a
Chevy nut at heart and would defend the bowtie in friendly banter when you visited the museum back in the day).
Try the exotic car museum in Gatlinburg if that suits you or even the Hollywood car museum if you like.
The Alcatraz East Crime Museum is pretty engrossing stuff; you'll spend hours in there with all the displays and history.
I like the Tennessee Museum of Aviation myself - a very active museum with actual warbirds that they routinely fly
(and used to give rides in, don't know if that's still done).
Finally, yes - I-40 at the TN/NC state line is in a constant state of falling into the Pigeon River (has for many years, honestly).
As widely reported, hurricane Helene absolutely destroyed the interstate (as well as giant, biblical swarths of NC) and
they've been trying to put Humpty back up on the wall there ever since, with equal parts success and failure.
Currently, it's one lane each direction - if it stays up this time, that is.
You literally can't run out of stuff to do and places to eat down there. Plan ahead, be patient and have fun.
