Gatlinburg

Gatlinburg sits in the mountains, hundreds of kilometres from any sea, and beach life plays no part in a stay. In summer people cool off in the cold, clear rivers of the national park. Tubing and wading in the Little River near Townsend is a favourite, and Douglas Lake, about forty minutes away, has some lakeshore swimming. The river pools are cold even in July and fast after rain, and the famous jumping spots have strong currents. A cabin hot tub or a hotel pool is the realistic substitute.

Eating here means feeding a resort crowd. Pancake houses and breakfast diners line the Parkway, along with barbecue joints, Southern comfort cooking and family restaurants built for volume. Fudge and saltwater taffy shops pull people in off the pavement. The local drink is moonshine, and tasting rooms pour fruit-flavoured shine to queues of visitors, with a few craft breweries and wineries alongside.

The best Appalachian food, meaning trout, country ham, biscuits, apple butter and stack cake, turns up in the odd restaurant rather than as a scene. Fine dining is thin. Most meals are hearty, casual and somewhat interchangeable, and food lovers tend to drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

Gatlinburg has very little of the usual sightseeing. The town is a strip of attractions, motels and shops along the Parkway, and its landmarks are an observation tower and mountaintop amusement areas, not historic buildings or serious museums. Most of its living heritage is the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community, a long loop of working studios where weavers, potters, woodcarvers and broom-makers sell from their own workshops.

The region's real history, the log cabins, mills and churches left by the mountain families who lived here before the national park, survives out in the park at Cades Cove, Elkmont and along the Roaring Fork. Those are outings rather than sights in town.

Evenings are about strolling the lit Parkway, eating late fudge and sampling moonshine, not going out. There are a handful of bars and pubs, a few rooftop and brewery terraces, and tasting rooms that stay busy into the evening. Nightclubs are effectively absent. Most visitors are families or couples in cabins, and the real evening for many is the hot tub on a deck above the trees. By late night the strip has emptied out.

The town is the front door of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The park boundary starts where the Parkway ends, and within minutes you are in deep hardwood forest with mountain streams. Trails run from easy waterfall walks like Laurel Falls and Grotto Falls to the climb up Mount LeConte by Alum Cave, and the road over Newfound Gap leads to Clingmans Dome, close to 2,025m. Black bears are a common sight, white-tailed deer graze Cades Cove, and elk roam the park's quieter eastern valleys.

The seasons shape everything. Spring brings wildflowers and synchronous fireflies, summer is humid and hazy, and October's foliage draws the biggest crowds. Winter brings occasional snow and a small ski slope above town. Whitewater rafting on the Pigeon River and horseback riding add variety. The catch is traffic: the most popular roads and trailheads jam on weekends and in leaf season.

The strongest outing is Asheville, about an hour and a half away, with its arts district and the vast Biltmore Estate, the grandest private house in the country. Crossing the mountains on the scenic Newfound Gap road takes you to Cherokee on the far side, where the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and the Oconaluftee village tell the story of the Eastern Band. Bryson City, with its heritage railway, is nearby.

Closer in, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville have their theme park, outlets and dinner shows, and quiet Townsend sits at the park's gentler western edge. Knoxville, about an hour away, has a pleasant old market square and university town. Beyond these the list runs out quickly.

Gatlinburg is built for family vacations. The Parkway is a long run of child-oriented attractions: a large aquarium, mirror mazes, mini golf, go-karts, alpine coasters and mountaintop parks with treetop bridges reached by chairlift or gondola. Dollywood, a big theme park with a mountain-heritage theme and a water park, is a short drive away in Pigeon Forge. Cabin rentals with games rooms and space for several families are the standard way to stay.

The national park gives children easy waterfall walks, bear sightings from the car, creek wading and junior ranger badges. The hard part is logistics. Parkway traffic crawls in high season, queues are long and parking is tight. Steep, winding cabin roads can be tricky in winter.

The downtown strip along the Parkway is compact and easy to walk, and a trolley system loops through town and out to Pigeon Forge. If you stay in a downtown hotel, you can park the car for a day or two. Most visitors stay in cabins up steep, winding hillside roads, though, and the national park, trailheads and day trips are only practical by car. On busy weekends and in October, traffic on the Parkway and the park roads can stall for long stretches, so early starts help.

The Parkway is lined with souvenir shops, candy kitchens, T-shirt stores and novelty knife and moonshine outlets, along with a few covered malls of small shops. The more rewarding shopping is in the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community. Along its loop road, artisans sell handmade quilts, pottery, brooms, baskets, leather goods and woodwork from their own studios. For brands, the large outlet malls in Pigeon Forge and Sevierville are a short drive away. Luxury and fashion are absent.

Prices here are middling. Older motels and big cabins shared by a group or extended family can be good value, especially midweek and in winter, and the national park itself costs little to enjoy. Meals are mostly casual and filling. The costs pile up elsewhere. The paid attractions along the Parkway and at Dollywood are expensive, especially for a family, and parking, fuel and tips add more. Rates climb sharply in October's leaf season, at Thanksgiving and over Christmas and New Year.

Live entertainment here is the family show rather than the concert hall. In nearby Pigeon Forge, a cluster of theatres stages dinner shows, country and gospel revues, comedy and magic most nights of the year. In Gatlinburg itself, acoustic bluegrass and country musicians play in the moonshine tasting rooms and on the street. The regional tradition of mountain music is the real thread, and Dollywood programmes plenty of it. There is no opera, orchestra or serious theatre, so anyone after those goes to Knoxville.

There is no bathing culture here, and spa options are limited to a handful of resort and day spas offering massages and treatments. What makes Gatlinburg restful is the way people stay: secluded hillside cabins with a hot tub on the deck, a rocking chair and a view of mist settling on the ridges. Away from the Parkway, the pace is slow and the nights are quiet. The town centre is the opposite, with crowded pavements, traffic and amusement noise, so stay above it rather than in it.