This year our family opened up our camping season with a spring break trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. Stopping by New River Gorge, West Virginia on the way, this trip checked off National Park visits #11 and #12 for our family of four!
As a family who plans most of their camping around State and National Park visits replete with hiking, biking, and other outdoor adventure options, the Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge areas offered a new twist to National Park travel – the potential to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Okay, I’m joking. A little bit. But though our National Park experience is narrow (12 as a family, 14 for me and Mike), the Great Smoky Mountains is the first NP we have visited that is flanked by two gateway towns chocked full of amusement and recreation activity options. And with pay per attraction fees, money spent over a few days in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge could add up REALLY quickly.
Don’t get me wrong – we loved our time in these gateways to the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains – so much so that we’ve made a list of things we would like to do on our next visit. But with shopping, activities, shows, and amusement as plentiful as multiple beach boardwalks, these Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge trip budgeting tips saved us hundreds of dollars and made our time in Tennessee relaxing and enjoyable.
Plan Ahead. We’re always fans of planning ahead, and rarely leave for a trip without at least a general idea of what we would like to see and do each day of travel. Planning ahead for a trip has never been as important for us as on our trip to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge! Great Smoky Mountains National Park is extensive, and the most popular hikes and driving loops are spread out enough that knowing what you’d like to see, and how far it is from your accommodations, is necessary.
We decided to tackle two areas of the park on two separate mornings of our trip, allowing us the entire afternoon to enjoy opportunities in town – one afternoon in Gatlinburg, the second in Pigeon Forge.
Buy Tickets In Advance. Nearly every attraction our family was interested in offered a minimal discount for buying tickets online in advance. Once you’ve come up with a list of activities you would like to experience, check their website for deals on online tickets and advance purchase sales. It will save you money and time at the gate.
Being a busy area, buying tickets in advance can also mean the difference between being able to accomplish your to-do list, and being shut out. The one activity our family knew we wanted to do, but didn’t buy tickets in advance for, was a mountain coaster ride. Though it worked out for us, and we were able to successfully ride a Mountain Coaster in Gatlinburg, we could have saved money and time by buying in advance.
Bundle and Save. We found that both Ripley’s and Tripster offered money saving combos for multiple attractions in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. We found the best savings for our family by combining our Titanic museum tickets with our Anakeesta admission. Deals include dinner shows, museums, the aquarium, mountain coaster rides, and endless other amusement attractions. Our combo through Tripster even allowed us to book our visit to Anakeesta on a different day than our visit to the Titanic museum.
And another perk to buying in advance: we saw families being turned away from the Titanic museum on Friday, April 7th, with the hosts saying that the next available tickets were for Saturday evening, April 8th. So pre-plan and buy in advance!
Spend Time Outdoors! Great Smoky Mountains National Park is full of hiking trails and driving loops, and seemingly limitless hours of opportunity to be immersed in the beauty of the region for (practically) free. Aside from fuel and modest parking pass fees (we paid $5 to drive up to Clingman’s Dome and park for the hike to the top), experiencing the great outdoors of this beautiful area is free, and it was my favorite part of our trip!
We only had two full days to spend in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area, and we planned National Park drives and hikes for each morning. I highly recommend a 50/50 (or 75/25 if you can talk your family into it!) split of time in nature vs time in town. It’s good for the wallet and the soul.
Pack a Cooler, Picnic, and Eat-In. We travel in our RV, which makes eating in much easier for our family than if we were in a hotel. The Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area is bursting with campgrounds and cabin rentals. If you can travel by RV, or reserve accommodations with a kitchenette, there is a lot of money to be saved by eating in and packing picnics for days out and about.
Our family enjoyed a mid-afternoon appetizers and drinks stop at the LandShark Bar & Grill in Gatlinburg ($70), the most delicious breakfast I’ve ever eaten in Gatlinburg’s famous Pancake Pantry ($60), one of the greatest cheese pizzas of all time from Pigeon Forge’s Mellow Mushroom Pizza ($30), and decadent ice cream cones from Kilwin’s Gatlinburg ($30).
By our crew’s standards, that is actually a lot of eating out for a trip so short! But for a total food tab of less than $200 including gratuities, we left Tennessee feeling really good about our choices. If we could only choose one dining out experience, it would be Gatlinburg’s Pancake Pantry over and over. If you are a breakfast enthusiast like me, Pancake Pantry was everything it is hyped up to be!
Set a Kids’ Souvenir Budget. We let our boys determine their own budget from their piggy banks (they each chose to take $30), and added $20 to each. When RV road tripping, our boys are always eager to start buying souvenirs, and almost always ask to buy something at our first travel plaza stop, ha! Giving them a budget has helped so much – they know how much they have to spend, and realize that when it’s gone, that’s it. We gently reminded them on this trip that there would be a gift shop at the end of the Titanic Museum that we wouldn’t visit until the last day of our trip.
Both boys ended up with a Great Smoky Mountains Visitors’ Center souvenir (hooray for supporting the National Park!) and a Titanic Museum souvenir. And both boys came home with money left over to return to their piggy bank!
Have you visited Great Smoky Mountains NP and Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge? Do you have any additional money saving tips and tricks for the area? I’d love more ideas for our next trip – please comment below and let me know!
