A local offers tips on what not to do at Gatlinburg’s popular pancake spot The Pancake Pantry is an iconic Gatlinburg institution. It was born in 1960 when a pair of Hoosiers decided to move to the mountains and open the first pancake palace in East Tennessee. They were quickly able to acquire the building and the land and then
A local offers advice on mistakes to avoid to make the most out of your next trip to Ober Gatlinburg I had given up on Ober Gatlinburg in the autumn a couple of years ago. In the days after Halloween, the park hadn’t transitioned from fall to winter. It was understaffed and underfunded. Then Joe Baker and his partners stepped
Crawdaddy’s in Gatlinburg, TN says goodbye to the strip, announces new concept for 2025 From restaurants to lodging to entertainment, the competition is fierce on the Parkway in Gatlinburg. And while it seems there is enough traffic to support everybody, there appears to be a never-ending arms race to be the newest and hottest restaurant on the strip. One such
7 most fun things to try along the strip in Gatlinburg TN It seems like everything in the Smoky Mountains is expanding. Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville and even out to Kodak at Interstate Exit 407 are growing, changing what had been for generations kind of hard and fast rules about where you went for fun in the mountains. Even the
A local offers advice on mistakes to avoid to make the most of your next trip to Anakeesta It arrived one day without much fanfare, just seemingly appearing on top of the mountain. Self-billed as Gatlinburg’s “theme park”, there wasn’t a lot to do at Anakeesta that first season. However, a program of steady improvements has seen expansion nearly every
A local offers advice on mistakes to avoid to make the most of your next trip to the SkyBridge With Anakeesta drawing traffic across the valley and Ober Mountain under new ownership, the competition for your “SkyDollars” has never been higher. But the eldest of the major mountaintop attractions isn’t ready to wave a white flag of surrender. The park’s
Want to explore Gatlinburg the way the locals do? Here are three suggestions When I was young, my wife Leslie and I were lucky enough to go to France and England a couple of times. We’d go in late March and early April and hope to catch an unseasonably warm week. We were lucky more than we weren’t. But warm
A local weighs the pros and cons of two popular star-studded restaurants in Gatlinburg, TN There’s a battle of country icons going on every day on the strip in Gatlinburg. In one corner you have Oklahoma’s Blake Shelton whose fame rocketed over some 110 seasons of “The Voice”, which allowed him to display his particular brand of charm and humor.
Study finds these popular tourist destinations to be the least expensive in the nation It is part of daily life existing in modern media. Each day, we are served various pitches designed to deliver clicks to the PR firm’s client. “Top 10 towns to retire in the country” “Top 10 towns to get pizza in the Southeast” “Towns where you’re
Local offers advice on avoiding crowds during your next Smoky Mountain vacation There was a time when I didn’t mind the crowds in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. When you’re young and life sprawls out before you, spending a couple of hours in traffic breathing gas fumes from the out-of-state SUV in front of you isn’t the torture it is later