Best Things to Do in the Smokies Ranked From Easy to Hard
I’ve visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park at least a dozen times in my life, and each time, I’ve experienced the park in a slightly different way. I’ve been to the park as a little kid, a college student, a mom of toddlers, a mom of tweens and teens, and a daughter of older parents. No matter the age or abilities of my travel companions, I’ve always found fun things to do. From easy scenic drives to strenuous mountaintop hikes, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has a little something for everyone.
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Things to Do in the Smokies
In this post, I’ve ranked some of the most popular things to do in the Smokies from easiest to hardest. The easy activities are family-friendly, for people with limited mobility or very young children. The moderate activities work well for families with children from about ages five to 12 and people who can manage slightly longer distances. The strenuous things to do require the most physical activity, including long or steep hikes with rocky terrain.
Easy – Scenic Drives, Accessible Sights, and Family Hikes
Newfound Gap Road
Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers more than 800 square miles and has 384 miles of roads, so one of the easiest ways to experience the beauty of the park is to drive through it. The drive up or down the park’s main thoroughfare, Highway 441, also known as Newfound Gap Road, will make you want to roll the windows down and crank up the John Denver tunes. Stretching between Cherokee, North Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the highway follows the path of the Little Pigeon River.
Newfound Gap Road has numerous pullouts where you can take in the view or make your way down to the river for some wading. For miles, the river tumbles gently over smooth boulders. During every Smoky Mountain vacation I’ve ever taken, we’ve spent time scrambling over the rocks, picking up the waterworn stones, and splashing around in the dappled shade of the forest.
About halfway through the drive, be sure to stop at the Newfound Gap parking area to check out the spectacular views. At the end of the parking lot is a two-story stone monument that Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated to the Rockefeller family for their help in purchasing land when the park opened in 1940.
Cades Cove Loop and Roaring Fork Motor Trail
Great Smoky Mountains National Park also has some areas that visitors specifically tour by car, including the Cades Cove Loop and Roaring Fork Motor Trail. The Cades Cove Loop is an 11-mile one-way drive through a valley dotted with historic cabins and churches, while Roaring Fork is a 5.5-mile one-way drive through an old-growth forest. Both are on the Gatlinburg side of the park. Cades Cove has numerous stops where visitors can exit their vehicles and see the buildings up close.
You can find more advice about auto-touring in Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the National Park Service here. We also used our favorite GPS-based touring app, GyPSy Guides, while driving around the park on our most recent visit.
Historic Sites in the Smokies
When you’re ready to stretch your legs after your scenic drive, stop by the Mountain Farm Museum, next to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. The Mountain Farm features a collection of historic buildings from the late 1800s, including a house, barn, applehouse, springhouse, and smokehouse. The buildings were transported to the site from other areas of the park in the 1950s. The farm, set in an idyllic valley, has gravel paths that lead to the sites.
Just a half-mile down the road is the historic Mingus Mill. Accessible via a short gravel path from the parking lot, the grist mill and its long, wooden millrace are original to site, dating from 1886.
Easy Hikes in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
With more than 850 miles of trails, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has great hikes for any skill level. For those looking for flat paths, try the fully accessible half-mile Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail or the 1.1-mile Cataract Falls Trail, which leads to a 25-foot waterfall. Near Oconaluftee Visitor Center, an easy 1.6-mile roundtrip hike on the Deep Creek Trail takes visitors to two waterfalls, Toms Branch Falls and Indian Creek Falls. Toms Branch, a 60-foot waterfall, is located at the half-mile mark. The 25-foot Indian Falls is another three-tenths of a mile up the trail. The Deep Creek hike involves some river crossings across narrow log bridges with handrails.
Moderate – Waterfall Hikes, Horseback Riding, and Swimming Holes
Moderate Hikes in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
One of the best scenic drives in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is Clingman’s Dome Road, a seven-mile spur up the top of a mountain that includes impressive overlooks. But for those seeking more physical activity, also consider a trek to the Clingman’s Dome observation tower, the highest point in the Smokies at 6,643 feet. The 1.2-mile out-and-back path is paved, which might make you wonder why this hike doesn’t fall into the “easy” category. That’s because the walk is steep, making it hard to push a stroller or a wheelchair. And thanks to the incline, most visitors need to stop for a moment on the way up to catch their breath.
A couple of other moderate, can’t-miss hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park include Laurel Falls, a paved path to an 80-foot waterfall, and Grotto Falls, a rockier path with a 25-foot waterfall that visitors can walk behind. Both of these waterfall trails measure 2.6 miles roundtrip and are good for school-aged children that can walk on their own. But adults can also manageably carry younger children at this distance (as we have done several times). Although Laurel Falls is paved, it’s not considered stroller-friendly because of the uneven pavement.
Horseback Riding in the Smokies
If you’re looking for things to do in the Smokies other than hiking, think about a horseback ride. From spring to fall, several concessionaires in Great Smoky Mountains National Park offer guided trail rides. The stables can accommodate riders of various skill levels, but the minimum age to participate is five or six years old, depending on the concessionaire. Available trail rides range from one hour to 2.5 hours long. For beginners, start with a shorter ride, as you’ll undoubtedly feel the burn in your muscles the next day.
Swimming Holes
During the summer, another great thing to do in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is to spend some time at a swimming hole. One of the most popular is The Sinks. Located between Sugarlands Visitor Center and Cades Cove, visitors can swim in the calm shallows or jump into the cold river from several rocky outcroppings. But don’t get too near the bridge just up the river, as the currents can be strong there.
Hard – Cades Cove Biking and Advanced Hikes
Biking Cades Cove
Biking can often be an easy and family-friendly activity. But as one friend told me after returning from a Great Smoky Mountains vacation, “Biking the Cades Cove Loop was nice, but it was HARD!” It’s true that while biking Cades Cove is one of the neatest and most beautiful things you can do in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it’s not for the faint of heart.
Inside the park, standard bikes are available for rent from the Cades Cove campground store for $10 an hour. Or you can bring your own bikes and unload them at the .parking lot before the start of the one-way loop. The full loop is 11 miles, but you can shorten it to either four miles or eight miles by taking the Sparks Lane or Hyatt Lane shortcuts. What makes this bike trip difficult though is not the distance; it’s the hills, and there’s no way to avoid them all. Although I’m fit, I’m not a regular cyclist, so I admittedly had to walk up some of the steeper grades.
One option to make this activity easier is to rent electric bikes from a vendor outside the park, such as 1 E-Bike Rental in Pigeon Forge. Under current regulations, the park allows Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes. We’ve never used e-bikes in the Smokies, but we recently tried them on the carriage roads at Acadia National Park and had a terrific experience.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park offers bikes-only mornings in Cades Cove, in which it closes the road to other traffic between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays from May to September. If you’re biking Cades Cove any other time, you’ll be riding on the road with vehicles, which could be nerve-wracking for less confident bicyclists.
Alum Cave Trail
For experienced day hikers, some of the best things to do in the Smokies include hiking Alum Cave Trail, Rainbow Falls Trail, and Chimney Tops Trail.
The Alum Cave Trail includes two cool rock formations—one called Arch Point at the 1.3-mile mark and the other, the Alum Cave Bluffs, at 2.3 miles. It also offers a stunning view of the mountain ridge from a rock outcropping known as Inspiration Point, just before the bluffs. In the summertime, the ridge is brushed with pink from the blooming rhododendron, making it a gorgeous sight. Because of the length of this trail (more than five miles roundtrip) and the rocky and steep terrain, this part of the trail is considered moderately difficult.
For those wanting more of a challenge, the Alum Cave Trail continues another five miles to the summit of Mount Le Conte. This second leg of the trail is hard and should only be attempted by experienced hikers with the proper equipment.
Rainbow Falls
Rainbow Falls Trail is another moderately difficult hike, totaling more than five miles roundtrip to reach the trail’s eponymous 80- foot waterfall. The falls often produce a rainbow-colored mist on sunny days, giving Rainbow Falls its name. The trail can be rocky, so wear hiking boots or shoes with a thick tread. This trail also leads to the summit of Mount Le Conte, which is another four miles beyond the falls.
Chimney Tops Trail
Chimney Tops Trail, located near Gatlinburg, is a shorter hike, coming in at four miles roundtrip. But it gains 1,400 feet of elevation in just two miles. This steep, hard route is one of the most popular hikes in Great Smoky Mountains National Park because it leads to an impressive rock summit viewable from a platform. At one time hikers could climb the summit’s rock pinnacles, or the “chimney tops,” but the park closed the last quarter mile of the trail due to a wildfire in 2016.
Looking for more information on things to do and places to stay in the Smokies? Check out this article about our most recent trip! Need more road trip ideas in the Southeast? You might like 8 Family Road Trips from Atlanta!
So many good memories of the Smoky Mountains. I definitely want to stay in a cabin there.