Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers 522,427 acres of the southern Appalachians, divided almost evenly between Tennessee and North Carolina. It had 11,527,939 recreation visits in 2025, the most of any national park and more than twice the second, Zion National Park. The Cherokee name for the range is Shaconage, land of blue smoke, after the haze that hangs over its ridges.

Most visitors come in from the Tennessee side, through Gatlinburg and Townsend, where the park headquarters and Sugarlands, its busiest gateway, are. We checked every figure below on 27 October 2026 on the park's own pages, its alerts, Recreation.gov and NOAA's normals.

Why is there no entrance fee, and what does the parking tag cost?

The Great Smoky Mountains charge no entrance fee because of a road deed. In 1951 Tennessee handed the park Newfound Gap Road and Little River Road on condition that the park charge no tolls. Federal law bars an entrance fee where tolls are banned on the main roads. Instead, since 1 March 2023, any vehicle parked anywhere in the park for more than 15 minutes needs a parking tag.

The tag costs $5 a day, $15 for a week or $40 for a year, for any vehicle. It must match the car's licence plate. The America the Beautiful pass does not replace it. The park is not on the 2026 list of parks with a $100 surcharge for non-residents. A visitor from abroad therefore pays what a resident pays.

Recreation.gov sells daily and weekly tags to print, and so do visitor centres and card-only machines. Most trailheads have no machine. A rental car's tag can only be bought once its plate is known. On the federal free days, 11 November is the last of 2026, drivers need no tag. Our guide to national park fees for international visitors covers the parks that do charge entry.

How do you drive Newfound Gap Road to Kuwohi?

Newfound Gap Road, US-441, runs through the middle of the park from Gatlinburg in Tennessee to Cherokee in North Carolina. The Park Service calls it a 31-mile scenic byway. It crosses the crest at Newfound Gap, 5,046 feet up, the lowest pass a car can drive through the range. The road is open all year except when storms close it.

Kuwohi, called Clingmans Dome until September 2024, is the highest peak in the park at 6,643 feet and the highest point in Tennessee. A road of about seven miles leaves Newfound Gap Road for it, open from 1 April to 29 November in 2026. From the car park a paved but very steep path of a mile there and back leads to the observation tower. The summit can be 10 to 20°F colder than the valleys.

Commercial vehicles are banned on Newfound Gap Road and throughout the park. Most park roads average about 35 mph.

What is there to see in Cades Cove?

Cades Cove is a broad valley south of Townsend ringed by mountains. An 11-mile one-way loop road runs past three churches, log houses, barns and a working mill. The loop is open from sunrise to sunset. The park suggests two to four hours for it.

The first European settlers arrived between 1818 and 1821. The Cable Mill opens from 15 March to 29 November in 2026, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Wednesdays from 6 May to 30 September 2026 the park closed the loop to cars for walkers and cyclists, though the parking tag still applied.

The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is a narrow 5.5-mile one-way road out of Gatlinburg. It opens from 17 April to 29 November and passes the Grotto Falls trailhead. Cataloochee, on the North Carolina side, is a remote valley reached by gravel road where one of the park's two elk herds lives.

Which Smokies trails are open and worth it?

The park's classic day hikes climb to waterfalls, bluffs and balds; most of them start on the Tennessee side. The distances below are the Park Service's, round trip.

The Laurel Falls Trail has been closed since 6 January 2025 for rebuilding and is expected to reopen in 2027. Since 13 October 2026 the park has closed Cherokee Orchard Road, the way to Rainbow Falls, to people on foot until 1 December because of bears. Damage from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 still keeps several trails and roads closed on the North Carolina side. The Appalachian Trail runs 74 miles through the park.

How close can you get to a bear in the Smokies?

Walking deliberately within 50 yards, 150 feet, of a bear is illegal in the Smokies, as is any approach that disturbs one. About 1,900 black bears live in the park, roughly two per square mile. By the Park Service's count that is the densest population in the country. They are most active from May to August.

Campers must keep all food and scented items in a locked hard-sided vehicle, or on bear cables in the backcountry. Breaking the food rules can cost up to $5,000 and six months in jail. Keep 25 yards from elk.

When do the leaves and the fireflies come?

October is the busiest month in the Smokies, with 1,561,683 visits in 2025, because of the autumn colour. The high peaks turn from mid-September, the slopes above 4,000 feet in early to mid-October, and the lower forest between mid-October and early November.

The synchronous fireflies, Photinus carolinus, flash in unison at Elkmont in late May or June. In 2026 the viewing ran from 20 to 27 May. Entry was by a Recreation.gov lottery: $1 to apply and $29 if chosen, for 120 cars a night. Wildflowers peak in mid-spring, and the pink Catawba rhododendron blooms on the high ridges around late May.

The table gives NOAA's 1991 to 2020 average highs and lows for the Gatlinburg 2 SW station near Sugarlands, at 1,454 feet, and Mount Le Conte, at 6,493 feet. Gatlinburg gets 58 inches of rain a year and Le Conte 84, with 77 inches of snow on the summit.

Where do you stay for the Smokies?

The park has no hotels inside it except LeConte Lodge, near the top of Mount Le Conte at 6,360 feet and reached only on foot. Its 2026 season, 23 March to 24 November, is fully booked, at $195 a night for an adult with dinner and breakfast. Phone bookings for 2027 opened on 1 October.

The park's ten campgrounds take reservations only, on Recreation.gov, and none has showers. Cades Cove and Smokemont stay open all year. Elkmont, the largest with 211 sites, is eight miles from Gatlinburg. The gateway towns the park lists include Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Townsend in Tennessee, and Cherokee and Bryson City in North Carolina. There are no petrol stations or restaurants inside the park, and phone signal is mostly absent.

How do you get to the Great Smoky Mountains?

McGhee Tyson Airport, south of Knoxville, is about 45 miles from the Gatlinburg entrance, and Asheville's airport about 60 miles from the Cherokee entrance, according to the Park Service. There is no public transport to the park or inside it.

The distances are our own routing without traffic. The park warns that GPS sometimes sends drivers the wrong way down one-way roads. The park is on Eastern Time, and it is one of the places in our guide to Tennessee.