Our Guide to Memorial Day in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge 2025 Memorial Day weekend often serves as the unofficial kickoff to summer and offers many folks a three-day weekend. If you’re planning on enjoying your Memorial Day weekend 2025 in the Great Smoky Mountains area, there will be plenty of outdoor fun, shopping and dining opportunities in store for you.
A guide to some of the best cascading water in the Smokies and beyond One of the blessings of living in or near the mountains is access to beautiful waterfalls. To be clear, you don’t necessarily need mountains to have a great waterfall. However, rapid changes in elevation do increase the frequency and availability of the natural wonder of falling
Local theorizes what happened to Fun Mountain in Gatlinburg TN In 1993, Dollywood was still in its first decade of growing out of its Silver Dollar City phase. Other Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge attractions were morphing with the dawn of the internet age. And Fun Mountain, located at the entrance to the strip in Gatlinburg, tried to lay its claim
Dollywood fan offers tips on what not to do when visiting the Pigeon Forge theme park I love going to Dollywood. As a kid, I was lucky enough to grow up within an hour of the theme park. Nostalgia and bias aside, even as a now-adult I must admit – Dollywood still holds its own even when compared to some
Thousands of visitors are leaving their handwritten wishes at this beautiful bridge in the Smoky Mountains I’ve been around the Smoky Mountain tourism game for more than 30 years. So, I’ve come to expect certain liberties to be taken with local lore. Any mountain, cove, den, holler, waterfall or creek that happens to come under the ownership of a money-making
A local with a fear of heights talks about swaying in the sky at Grandfather Mountain I am afraid of heights. It is not, for the most part, a debilitating fear. I can – usually – overcome it. If I’m inside and feeling secure, I don’t have a problem. Neither the former Sears Tower in Chicago or the St. Louis
A movie fanatic ranks famous flicks filmed at Biltmore Estate in Asheville In Selma, the muddy and mighty Alabama River curves under the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge where the infamous Sunday Civil Rights March took place. I worked in one of those buildings, next to the bridge. Working next to an iconic location you get used to a few things, including
Is Dollywood better than Disney? It was the summer of 1978. I was about to be 5. My mom and my Aunt Amy loaded into an automobile of the age. In other words, a gigantic steel rectangle with a massive backseat that featured considerably more in car ashtrays than seat belts. Mom’s parents – Nanny and Papaw to me –
A comprehensive guide to the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, TN by a local Building the perfect theme park is an ineffable combination of science, technology and alchemy. In Pigeon Forge, the magical formula is just right at the Dollywood theme park. The journey from Rebel Railroad to Goldrush Junction to Silver Dollar City is a fairly mundane tale of minor
The Best Things To Do in the Smoky Mountains in the Summertime Ah, summertime in the Smoky Mountains – the kids are out of school, the temperature is hot and humid, and the mosquitos are out to play. Families are packing up their minivans and attempting the impossible, aka, trying to please everyone for the annual summer getaway. But the