Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
- bradleighmartin
- Oct 7, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 9, 2020
In August 2020 we spent four days exploring Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and all it's wonders. Read to find out about the sites and restaurants we enjoyed while vacationing as a family!
My family and I decided to pack up and head 13 hours to Tennessee on a Wednesday evening to make it to a fashion show, my sister was walking in, that was taking place on Saturday. We left a few days early that way we had two days to site see. We booked our hotel at Black Fox Lodge which is a tapestry collection by Hilton. The hotel was in a wonderful location just located off the main highway. If you have never been to Pigeon Forge before I would describe it as Branson, Missouri. Busy on the weekends with lots of traffic so we were thankful we had few days before the crowds showed up! Our trip took place from Thursday-Sunday with Thursday and Friday being our site seeing days. The hotel was in the perfect location and just minutes away from all of the famous sites, Dollywood and The Island at Pigeon Forge. It was decorated like a lodge and our room was equipped with two queen beds and a balcony looking over the river!
We started the trip by waking up Thursday morning to head over to Sawyer's Farmhouse, a breakfast place I found on Yelp. I had researched restaurants before we came and found this one to be highly rated with good reviews so I wanted to give it a try. I ordered the chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter syrup! Yum! They had several flavors of syrup to pick from, including a cinnamon flavor that tasted like Christmas morning! They have it advertised on their menu that you can buy their syrup flavors in the gift shop, but you could in fact not due to them being out of stock because of packing changes. Bummer! I wanted that peanut butter syrup!
After breakfast, we decided to drive an hour through Gatlinburg to head straight to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We did not need a reservation to get inside the park we just drove the path up to Clingmans Dome. From Gatlinburg, you follow the signs to Newfound Gap road, 23 miles, then to Clingmans Dome, which will take you around one hour to drive if you do not stop. There is plenty of pull-offs along the way with room to park your car and get out to take pictures. Be aware that it will get about 20 degrees colder as you climb in elevation! We made sure to pack jackets and raincoats. Clingmans Dome is the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains Park at 6,643 feet. I would research this area before driving because conditions may be too foggy to see anything when you arrive, that is what happened to us. Also, this is a STEEP incline up one mile from the parking lot. I researched this area, but I did not see where people described how steep it is. I saw lots of people not make it or not want to make the incline so just be prepared before visiting. Once you reach the top of the dome you have a 360-degree view of the Smokies, or so I am told since it was too foggy and wet for us to see. LOL.
These pictures were taken on the drive up to Clingmans Dome. The first picture is at the top of Clingmans Dome where visibility was scarce. The other pictures were taken at some of the pull offs along the way. Driving through the city of Gatlinburg was neat because it seems like there is so much to do. We did not stop in the town because of how busy it was and the limited parking, but I would definitely love to go back and visit all the stores and go to the Anakeesta theme park.
On Friday of our trip, we decided to visit a couple of places. First we stopped by the Old Mill which was located less than a mile from our hotel. The Old Mill is a restaurant with gift shops and tons of cool souvenirs. This mill was built in 1830 and has now been converted into a restaurant. Although we did not eat there we walked around all the shops nearby and wineries. The gift shop was the cutest with tons of goodies to buy and homemade items. You could buy flour by the pound there! I decided to go with jarred pickles and cheese dip as my souvenir! We then headed over to the Island at Pigeon Forge which I had heard so much about. I was pumped to visit the Paula Deen store! Entering the Island is basically like parking at a theme park. The parking lot is so big you have to remember what letter you parked at and they even had a tram you could take to the front, we walked. Margaritaville Hotel sits on this property as well as a ton of restaurants, stores, and activities. There is so much to do here and they even have a section for younger kids. The crowds tend to get pretty big here so I would arrive early and get parking. This place is free admission, free parking, and pet friendly! The beautiful Ferris wheel sits in the center of the island and ticket costs are anywhere from $20-$40 depending on the package you want. I would recommend visiting The Island in Pigeon Forge website for all the up to date activities going on. They even have moonshine tastings located at Ole Smoky Moonshine. Although we did not eat at Paula Deen's restaurant I thoroughly enjoyed the store and had to force myself to leave before I bought everything in sight! For lunch we decided to try a barbecue place, Boss Hogg's BBQ, located 3 miles from our hotel, 10 minutes. I had found this on Yelp and let me tell ya it was too good!! My brother and I ordered the two meat two sides to go for $15 and it was ready quickly. It was plenty of food for the two of us!
Next on our list was dessert so why not try edible cookie dough! Cookie Dough Monster had everything from sandwiches and salads to breakfast and cookie dough. The food looked delicious I might add. We ordered the cookie dough sampler for $9 where you got to select 9 flavors of whatever cookie dough you wanted! (Pictured above) They are not shy with the servings either they loaded those samplers up it was so much cookie dough! I thought this place was very reasonably priced and had really good cookie dough. My favorite was the Birthday Cake flavor! And last but not least on our trip was visiting the Christmas Store. Located less than 2 miles from our hotel it was the cutest Christmas store I had EVER been to. It was decorated so perfectly and the outside looked like a Christmas village. The inside was like a maze with so many different sections and themes. I wanted to buy the whole store! It was one of my favorite stores in Pigeon Forge and I am sure we spent an hour here just looking around.
All in all, this was a family fun trip with so many different sites to see and activities to do. We did not even do half the things we wanted to or half of the things we could have done. I am glad I got to experience the Great Smoky Mountains for the first time and I cannot wait to go back and explore more! Below I have listed links to the places we visited that way you can see for yourself and read reviews!
Comments