An independent guide
We pick log cabins in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville and Cosby, and write up what to do around them. No cabin, rental company or attraction pays to be here.
95 cabin write-ups · 42 things to do · 10 planning guides
What you'll find here
- Cabin write-ups. Who each cabin suits and who should book something else, what's inside, where it actually sits, and the nearest things to do by drive time.
- Things to do. The national park, the trails, the Parkway attractions and day trips: who each one is for, what it costs, and the catch — crowds, closures, parking rules.
- Planning guides. Where to base yourself, when to go and what to check before you book. Each starts with the short answer and ends with its sources.
What you won't
- Paid placements. Nobody pays to be listed or for a better write-up.
- Scores of our own. We don't give cabins stars or points. The guest score on a cabin page is Booking.com's, shown with its number of reviews.
- Write-ups where everything is perfect. Every cabin page says who the cabin isn't for, and what it doesn't have.
- Pretend visits. The cabin write-ups describe what the listing, the photos and the guests show. They don't claim a stay.
How we choose the cabins
A cabin gets a write-up when it meets all of these. Owners can suggest a cabin, but the answer depends on these criteria, never on a fee.
- It's in one of the areas we cover: Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville or Cosby.
- It has a public listing and guest reviews we can check the write-up against. Today every cabin we list can be booked on Booking.com, where you see the live price and dates.
- We'd recommend it to someone, and we can say plainly who should skip it.
How we work
- Cabins. Each write-up starts from the property's public listing — its description, amenities and photos — and its guest-review data on Booking.com. Where a price is shown, it's one we checked on a given date, and the page says which.
- Things to do. Facts come from the park service (nps.gov) first, then the attraction's or operator's own site. Where things change — fees, road closures, trail status — the page links to the official source. Tours you can book link to GetYourGuide, with the price and reviews as GetYourGuide shows them.
- Guides. Weather comes from NOAA and National Weather Service climate data, not from other travel sites. Every guide lists its sources at the end.
- Fact-check. Before a page goes up, a second pass re-opens the sources and checks the page line by line. Anything a source doesn't support is corrected or cut.
- Drive times. They're our estimates from OpenStreetMap road data (OSRM routing), without traffic. On a busy weekend on the Parkway, allow more.
- Photos. Every photo is credited. Wikimedia Commons photos carry the author and licence, with links to both; Unsplash and Shutterstock photos are credited by name. Cabin photos come from the property's listing and are credited to the property.
- Corrections. When a reader or an owner points out something we can verify — a closed attraction, a changed rule, a dead link — we fix the page. Tell us here.
How the site is funded
By affiliate links. The "check availability" buttons on cabin pages go to Booking.com, and the tour buttons on things-to-do pages go to GetYourGuide. If you book after clicking, the platform pays us a commission. You pay the same price.
The commission never changes which cabins we list or what we say about them. There are no ads and no sponsored articles. Read the full affiliate disclosure.
Who's behind it
The guide is written by Pierre-Marie Coupry, a travel journalist since 2005. It's published by SM4B (sm4b.eu), a publishing company based in Guérande, France.
Something to correct, a cabin to suggest, a question about how we work? Write to [email protected], or see the contact page. The publisher's details are in the legal notice.