Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Close your eyes and picture Disney World. Now remove all the rides, but not the people waiting for them. Add some car traffic and a Paula Deen store.
Welcome to Gatlinburg. And for the artificial cherry on top, we visited during COVID.
If Tennessee has urban planning laws, visitors to Gatlinburg will be none the wiser. Emerging from the park, traffic immediately grinds to a halt. The two-lane main road through town features near-constant crosswalks without lights to govern foot traffic. Hoards of maskless people charge abruptly into the street, only to immediately forget their rush to cross and amble slowly to the other side.
Idling in your car hoping traffic will one day move gives you quite a bit of time to take in your surroundings. A store called American Traditions sports a sign that reads, "God and Country" next to a "thank you Jesus" poster. Lines spiral uncontrollably out of the myriad pancake houses. The Gatlinburg Arcade, Shoot 'em up Cinema (7D), and The Amazing Mirror Maze compete with Ripley's Believe it or Not's take on horror for dollars and eyeballs. In a sad-looking mini mall, KC's Jewels advertises $5 Bling right above a bear-safe dumpster. This morass was evidently impressive enough to someone to warrant a Space Needle for from-above viewing.
The sheer volume of kitsch is impressive, but it is the throngs of humans who have sought out this place, and upon seeing it, thrown themselves into the experience, who truly inspire awe. The humans per square foot index rivals Times Square's in its pre-pandemic hay-day. Without masks, people travel in huge crowds and stand in long lines for the privilege of being derided by a waiter at Dick's Last Resort or grabbing a donut from The Donut Friar. Even the open air mountainside chairlift sports a line so clustered and with such poor mask compliance that it cannot be considered a COVID-safe activity.
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We chose to stay in Gatlinburg because it is a convenient gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I would encourage similarly minded hiking enthusiasts to find an alternative, so long as that alternative is not Gatlinburg's only-slightly-less-terrible neighbor town, Pigeon Forge. Cherokee, on the east side of the park, surely must be a better option.
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If you decide that you MUST stay in Gatlinburg, despite the above, here are some recommendations.
Do not stay in a Motel. Yes, 90% of Gatlinburg tourist housing is motels. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not pay even $1 to stay in a Motel in Gatlinburg.
Plan to cook for yourself in your Vacasa (Vacasa seems to own most of the non-motel tourist housing in Gatlinburg). This applies doubly for anyone with dietary restrictions; I can only infer that Gatlinburg has not heard of a "vegetarian," much less a "vegan." Instacart does remarkably work in Gatlinburg. You will want to feed yourself via grocery delivery for *all 3 meals per day.* When we erroneously tried to eat "restaurant food" in the area, we tried several restaurants which each featured a 1-3 hour wait time. We wound up (1) waiting in line at a Jersey Mike's for over an hour during COVID, and (2) ordering delivery from Popeye's to avoid a repeat Jersey Mike's episode.
Traffic on the main road through Gatlinburg is bad enough to entirely undo the day of recharge and relaxation that you earned hiking in the Smokies. It is bad at any and all times of day. 9pm on a Monday evening? Yep. 8am on a Tuesday? You betcha. The weekend? Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Any route you can take driving to avoid the main drag is worth it. Google consistently underestimates the traffic, and utterly fails to account for the frustration you will experience in said traffic.
The visitor's center on the Gatlinburg side of the park is always jam packed. If you want to go, be there when it opens. Or, just go to Cherokee, where there is never a line; it may take less time to get in there, even with the 1.5 hour drive.
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As you leave Gatlinburg, you may remember this blog post, and you may muse that I did a laughably inadequate job of describing the complete and utter awfulness of this dystopian nightmare town.
In the middle of our stay in Gatlinburg, I called my dad to wish him a happy birthday. He asked about our trip, and I tried to convey all that Gatlinburg is over the phone. I knew I had failed when he said, "well, perhaps there is some charm in how terrible it is." I assured him that there was no charm to be found in this horror show. When I sent him a short video the next day of the crowds, featuring a teenager wearing a confederate flag rain coat, he replied, "This is truly one of those times that a picture is worth a thousand words. Thank you for saving me from having to visit to see it myself."
Please know that I know that I have not done Gatlinburg justice here. Perhaps a better writer than I could. My best suggestion to you is to imagine something 50% worse than I have described. And then, stay anywhere else.
