Great Smoky Mountains National Park

These mountains are the ancestral homeland of the Cherokee people, who lived, hunted, and farmed here for countless generations and gave many of the peaks and streams their oldest names. In the 1830s the United States forced most Cherokee west on the Trail of Tears, but some remained hidden in the mountains or won the right to stay.

Their descendants form the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a federally recognized tribe living today on the Qualla Boundary bordering the park near the town of Cherokee. The Eastern Band remains a vibrant community with its own government, language efforts, and cultural institutions, and its history is woven through the story of the Smokies.

Unlike the western parks carved from federal land, the Great Smoky Mountains park was assembled in the early twentieth century by buying up hundreds of farms, homesteads, and timber tracts, a difficult effort funded partly by public donations and philanthropy. Families who had lived in the coves for generations were bought out or relocated as the park took shape.

The park was dedicated in the 1930s, and much of its infrastructure was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. Throughout the park, preserved cabins, churches, mills, and farmsteads in places like Cades Cove and along the North Carolina valleys recall the mountain communities that once lived here.

The Smokies are famous for their sheer richness of life, sheltering thousands of documented species and likely many more still unknown, from salamanders and fireflies to bears and rare plants. The range of elevations creates a stack of different forest zones, and the park is sometimes called the salamander capital of the world for its unmatched variety of these amphibians.

Black bears roam throughout, elk have been restored to the valleys on the North Carolina side, and each spring brings a celebrated bloom of wildflowers to the forest floor. In early summer, synchronous fireflies put on a rare flashing display, one of many natural spectacles that draw visitors through the year.

Hundreds of miles of trails thread the park, from easy waterfall walks to long climbs along the Appalachian Trail, which follows the crest through the heart of the Smokies. Scenic roads such as Newfound Gap Road cross the mountains, linking the North Carolina and Tennessee sides past overlooks and trailheads.

Summer and fall are the busiest seasons, when the park's roads and popular trails can be crowded, especially during the autumn color. Spring wildflowers and mild days make a fine, quieter time, while winter brings snow to the high country and possible road closures, leaving the misty mountains at their most peaceful.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.