Fall Leaves in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
One of the best places in America to see fall leaves is the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Millions of people visit this National Park each year and for good reason. It is beautiful. And not just in the fall, but year round. Back in college we would travel from Young Harris to Gatlinburg twice each winter. A couple hundred of my favorite college students would cram into a rented hotel or condo and spend the weekend enjoying the town and the Great Smokey Mountains that bordered Gatlinburg. Later I went to Gatlinburg in the fall and realized that the region was even more beautiful during its fall foliage peak.
The leaves in the Great Smoky Mountains will first change at the higher elevations, above 3500 feet. These leaves can best be seen in the first week of October. The next phases of fall color can be seen throughout October and into early November. Most of the leaves have usually dropped by mid-November and it starts to get cold in the higher elevations by this time.
One of my favorite fall trips is to start in Asheville, North Carolina and work my way through the mountains to Cherokee, North Carolina and then take the Blue Ridge Scenic Highway to Gatlinburg. Both Cherokee and Gatlinburg are a cheesy, but they are also really fun places for kids or to take a break after a hike. Speaking of hiking – check out the trails around Clingman’s Dome Road (at the TN and NC state lines on the Blue Ridge Pkwy).