The Smoky Mountains: One Day Itinerary for Families

Are you looking for fun things to do in the Smoky Mountains with your family?  Would you love to discover how to see the best of this incredible national park in just one day? If yes, then this post is for you.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, located between Tennessee and North Carolina, is a spectacular national park full of sweeping mountain views, an abundance of hiking trails, and a ton of history. It is the #1 most visited national park in the entire United States and it regularly beats out both the Grand Canyon (#2) and Yosemite’s (#3) yearly visitors combined! But this increased popularity also means that it is a good idea to have a plan before you go. A plan of what sites you want to see and a plan that may let you avoid some of the crowds. This alone can really make a huge difference in your experience here and I highly recommend it. This is where I’d like to help. 

Here, in this post, you will find top family sites in Smoky Mountains National Park and where they are located. I will also let you in on what sites we liked best and which sites have the highest crowds at peak times. On top of this, I personally want to share with you our own family’s “One Day Smoky Mountain Itinerary” to help you in your planning.

Update: As of March 1, 2023 a parking tag is required to park in Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 15 minutes. A Daily, Weekly or Annual Pass can be purchased online at recreation.gov (as of Feb 21, 2023) or onsite when you arrive from one of the visitor centers.

 

Our Smoky Mountains One Day Itinerary

In our Smoky Mountains Itinerary you will find fun, kid-friendly nature hikes to beautiful waterfalls, the location of gorgeous scenic drives where wildlife sighting are common, information on how to visit a fantastic Cherokee village and so much more.

With this One Day Itinerary, shown below, our family was able to have an amazing experience at a wide variety of sites, that we feel demonstrates the best of what Smoky Mountains National Park has to offer. And we hope that through this post we are able to help you have an amazing experience here too!

 

 

Smoky Mountains One Day Itinerary

Smoky Mountains National Park Visit

Our family began the journey to discover the Smoky Mountains early in the morning from the North Carolina side of the park. 

Our first destination this morning was the kid-friendly waterfall hike called Mingo Falls. We chose to hike this first because we were on the east side of the park and we could hike it before the Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Cherokee Village even opened. Hiking early is also a great way to beat the crowds and I personally love being able to walk through a forest in the morning hours when the air is cool and everything feels so peaceful.

 

Visiting the Smoky Mountains, with this itinerary, was part of our family’s road trip across the Southeast United States (and if you’d like to read more about this road trip click below.)

 An 11 Day Road Trip from Florida to Indiana

 

Mingo Falls

Website: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/mingo-falls.htm

Mingo Falls is a beautiful waterfall that is located on a Cherokee Indian Reservation just outside of Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina side. The hike to this falls is only 1/4 mile long but there are 161 steps that make this short trail more intense. At the end of the trail you will reach a picturesque wooden bridge that overlooks an amazing 120 foot waterfall. Mingo Falls is one of the tallest and prettiest waterfalls in the entire southern Appalachians, but since it lies just outside of Smoky Mountains Park many people unfortunately don’t even know it’s there.

Mingo Falls Trail is a perfect hike for families!

On our trip, our children were ages 3, 6 and 8 and Mingo Falls Trail was just what we were looking for. It was short, yet interesting which kept them engaged, and it had a beautiful waterfall finish! (Just know that if it’s rained recently, this trail can become slippery in places.)  Mingo Falls was also our children’s first waterfall (hard to believe it but it was) and I was really excited to see what their reaction would be.

Mingo Falls Trailhead

To access this hike, go to Pigeon Creek Trail (by Mingo Falls Campground) to begin your journey into the woods.

Hiking the Trail

For us, as our family began down the trail to Mingo Falls, I wanted to build up their excitement for their first waterfall so we began pretending that we were the first explorers to discover this area. (I have found that this game is a great way to get children excited while hiking and my kids have played this game on countless hikes since!)

While we hiked we also listened for the sound of the river, looked for wildlife and discussed what we thought we would find. And as we got closer we could hear the sound of the rushing water. Their excitement climbed. And then we saw it. Beautiful Mingo Falls!

Traveling is so much more than just going somewhere and seeing something. It’s all about your experience at that moment. And it’s all about your appreciation for where you are.

This is why I strongly encourage anyone to learn about, talk about or (with children) play games about where you are going or what you are seeing. I have found that, at least with our family, this can make all the difference in our experience and in our memories of our vacation together.

 

After leaving Mingo Falls we drove 11 minutes down the road to the 

Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Mountain Farm Village.

Website: http://visitcherokeenc.com/itinerary-builder/poi/park-visitor-center/

This visitor center has a wonderful historic farm village where you can learn all about how families lived in the mountains here a 100 years ago. There is a log farmhouse, a barn and a working blacksmith shop. The visitor center is also a wonderful place to try and spot wild elk in the mornings, but unfortunately we did not see any elk.

We did enjoy wandering around the village but our children did not have the same enthusiasm here as they had for their first waterfall. Yet, I had also forgotten to try and immerse them in this experience.

At this time I didn’t realize how important it was to help a child appreciate where they were through games, talking and books. And if I had known then what I know now, they probably would have enjoyed this site much more. Ideas that I wish I would have done were things like, helping them imagine what life would have been like to live in one of these log homes deep within the mountains. Talking about what their struggles might have been? Ask them how they thought these individuals’ lives were different from ours? etc. These thoughts and questions create a personal experience for your child that can help them more fully appreciate what they are seeing.

I was learning yet again how I wanted to travel with my family.

 

Our next stop was 10 minutes down the road at the Oconaluftee Indian Village.

Oconaluftee Indian Village

Website: http://visitcherokeenc.com/play/attractions/oconaluftee-indian-village/

At the Oconaluftee Indiana Village I wanted our family to learn about the Cherokee Native Americans, who have called this area home for hundreds of years. As we entered into this village we were immediately transported back in time to an authentic working Cherokee village from the 1760s.

Here, a guide leads your tour group to each building while you watch the daily life of villagers go on around you. We learned about basket weaving, their beaded artwork and how they made pottery.

My boys’ favorite part of the tour was the blow gun demonstration. My favorite part was watching a canoe being made. They don’t use an ax! Instead, they used a controlled burn to cut down a tree and then hollowed it out using the same method to make the canoe! I guess I never really thought about how a person would cut down a tree without an ax before.

I found this process fascinating!

Great Smoky Mountain National Park 

Website: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm

Right after lunch we began our 33 mile journey across Smoky Mountains National Park on Newfound Gap Road (US-441). 

(Side note: You can drive straight through this park from Cherokee to Gatlinburg on US-441 in about an hour with no stops, in case you’re wondering.)  

Smoky Mountains National Park was also our children’s first national park and the perfect introduction to their first mountain views.

 

Slowly we made our way to our next stop which was Clingmans Dome. This is located off US-441 near the North Carolina/ Tennessee boarder.

 

Clingmans Dome

Clingmans Dome is located on the highest mountain in the park as well as the highest in Tennessee at 6,643 feet. (This is also the highest point on the Appalachian Trail which crosses here at Clingmans Dome.) 

Unfortunately for us it began raining during our drive through the Smoky Mountains, and as we neared Clingmans Dome we were suddenly immersed in a cloud. Everything around us was completely white. Fortunately we were able to get safely pulled over (in the surprisingly packed parking lot) at Clingmans Dome. I was disappointed because this cloud cover meant that we wouldn’t be able to see anything at the lookout point (which by the way it’s a steep half mile hike from the parking lot to the lookout.)

But then my kids taught me another important travel lesson.

They were ecstatic to be inside an actual cloud! This was an amazing experience! My kids didn’t care that they were missing the view. They were excited for what was right in front of them and I loved it!

It’s amazing the things that kids can teach us about finding the silver lining of a situation.

So without being able to see Clingmans Dome’s 360 degree view we had to descend back down the mountain to US-441. As we headed back down we then emerged back out from the cloud and found that it was still raining, but at least now we could see.

 

As a side note: 

At mile-post 14.7, just north of the intersection of Clingmans Dome Rd, there is a scenic overlook where you can stand on the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee. We did not get to experience this due to the rain but this could be a fun place to stop.

 

Cades Cove

When we planned our Smoky Mountains’ trip, with this itinerary, we also made the decision, this time, to skip Cades Cove (another highlight in the area). Cades Cove is located 25 miles off of US-441 (on the Tennessee side). Here, there is an 11 mile scenic one way loop with historic cabins and possible wildlife sightings which is an extremely popular place to visit. Cades Cove is known to get extremely crowded during peak times and especially on weekends. And during these times traffic can move so slowly that it just inches along down the one way loop.

With young kids and not being able to arrive until mid-day on a weekend (which is definitely during peak crowd times) this did not sound fun to me. But if we had been able to visit the Smoky Mountains for two days or if we had started on the west side of the park and arrived early in the morning, then Cades Cove would have definitely made our list of places to visit. 

Instead, since the rain had briefly stopped, we decided to stop at Sugarlands Visitor Center and walk to Cataract Falls.

 

Cataract Falls

Cataract Falls is an easy kid-friendly hike that is less than one mile round trip and leads to a pretty 25 foot waterfall.

After our hike here was finished we drove to our hotel in Gatlinburg.

The town of Gatlinburg is an energetic tourist town with a lot of restaurants, hotels and activities to choose from. But on this night, after a long day of hikes and sites, we were tired and hungry so we just checked into our hotel and looked for a place to eat.

We chose to walk to dinner at the Smoky Mountain Brewery and we really liked it. Here, they have a great atmosphere with really good pizza, burgers and beer. For us, this was the perfect ending to a fun-filled day experiencing the best of the Smoky Mountains!

Now I know that this post is for a one day itinerary in the Smoky Mountains but after dinner our kids were tired and it was still drizzling off and on and so we decided to postpone driving Roaring Fork Road until the following morning.

This turned out to be a great decision for us because in the morning the sun was shining, we were all energized and we ended up having this gorgeous scenic drive all to ourselves!

 

Roaring Fork Road 

Website: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/roaringfork.htm

Roaring Fork Road is a 5.5 mile long, narrow one way loop, on the west side of Great Smoky Mountain National Park and it is Spectacular!!

For directions to Roaring Fork Road click here