Best Glamping near Croatan National Forest

Expensive but worth it. The owners are going all out with this campground. Tiny homes, glamping tents, and cabins for rent. Then there are on river and off river RV sites. The on river rv sites have a gazebo over the picnic table. Great facilities that are only being made better.

It is right before the entrance to the Smoky Mountain National Park. Townsend is called the peaceful side of the Smoky Mountains.

Fun and relaxing creekside Glamping treehouse, there's plenty of space for a few tents as well. The creek is cool and refreshing to enjoy rock hunting. Large fire pit and grill to make our dinner. We stargazed on one if the clear nights, looked like the planetarium! When we went to sleep we we're comfortable in the Air-conditioned beautifully decorated treehouse. Lots of fun places to go within 20 minutes in any direction... really centrally located in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains!

Camp Leconte Luxury Resort is located in Gatlinburg near the Greenbriar area of the Smokies. It’s a fairly small campground right on the Parkway. It’s close to town, but far enough away to avoid traffic. The campground has nice, paved spots for rv’s. It has glamping tent cabins, as well as vintage campers. There is a camp store, but the campground is not far from a grocery store and liquor store. There’s a trolley stop nearby also, so if you’d like To go to the strip, you can take the trolley and not worry about parking. There’s a nice pool and playground. Very clean campground.

We loved this campground! Very nice and spacious sites. The campground was developed along the Little River and is absolutely gorgeous! The bathhouses are the nicest I have ever seen. The sites were level and had full hook-ups. They are renovating the pool and it looks like it will be amazing. It was easy to get to anything Smoky Mountain related including Cades Cove. If camping isn't your thing, they also have vacation homes, glamping tents, tiny houses, and airstreams to rent. We rode our bikes at Cades Cove which is closed to cars on Wednesdays, hiked the Spruce Flat Falls Trail and Rainbow Falls Trail. It was a great camping experience!

This is not exactly the camping in the woods without hookups atmosphere. This is more of a every want/need met glamping RV Resort. And it’s awesome!

The RV sites are large and level, full hookup. There are gorgeous cabins that look more like tiny homes, and the atmosphere at this park is a great way to retreat. 100 ft max for RVs.

Very kid friendly, pet friendly (Kamp K9), lots in the area to go do and see. Pools, hot tub, kitchen, firewood for sale, fishing access, snack bar, cable tv, and WiFi.

The staff here is awesome, very helpful and knowledgeable. The park is very clean and well kept.

Cellular service for TMobile was not very strong but AT&T provided plenty for streaming and working.

Such a beautiful place. Lots of activities for children of all ages. Well kept swimming pool and bathroom areas. Lots of options on lodging. Short drive to downtown Cherokee, North Carolina. River access. Even has the start of a hike that goes to a Mingo falls.

This place is by far my families favorite. We camp here every year. The campground is beautiful. The sites are clean. They have an amazing playground with an activity center. They always hold events for families. They have everything you could possibly think of. Staff is wonderful. You go long enough and they feel like family. Most highly recommended in western north Carolina. We love this place.

Yes this campground will be packed in the middle of the summer. The great smoky mountains are the most visited National Park and this campground might be the most popular of them all. Right outside of Gatlinburg so plenty to do and see if you feel like exploring outside of the park. So if you want it to be quiet, go to North Carolina side or come in the fall or just embrace the madness.

Stayed hear as a family while traveling through the are on a road trip from northern Minnesota to North Carolina, years ago. We wanted to take in Smoky Mountain National Park and felt this KOA met our traveling needs. We stayed in a RV. Beautiful nearby scenery. A bit urbanized camping but most KOA's are. This didn't deter us as we wanted to be nearby shops and restaurants. Would stay again here if ever in the area again.

If you’re into hiking, water sports and/or mountain biking you’ll love Jackrabbit Campground. Located on Lake Chatuge in both North Carolina and Georgia, you can ride right to the biking trails or launch your paddleboard right from your lakeside site.  RVers will have to rough it with no hookups, but there is access to a dump station. There are 95 sites with bathrooms and showers, a beach area and motorboat launch. Make reservations through Reserve  America.  Open April 1 through October 1.

Campground Review:

This Campground is really unique and beautiful with a good variety of natural settings for both tent and RV sites. If you look through my pictures you will see that almost every RV site is on a roaring creek as are the tent sites, and there are cabins on site as well. This would be an excellent site for a multi family gathering where some want cabins, some want RVs and some want tents. There are 4 waterfalls on the property, 2 of which are pretty solid hikes to get to. One is 200 ft tall and the other is 400 ft tall. The Falls are wild and roll through the forest so you don't necessarily see the giant drop off but there are plenty of opportunities for backcountry type scrambling to find sweet little pools and seats to cool off in. the AT is just 1.5 miles away. Another amazing little secret about this place is it is about 2 miles from Chatahoochee Spring, which is on the AT and the actual origin of the Chatahoochee River. The hike to the spring offers an amazing experience to see how the creek narrows as you rise to the lone Chatahoochee spring that starts the entire watershed. The place is currently owned and run by Dr. Scwan, a former chiropractor and is sort of in transition to new owners/ caretakers. I visited the Campground 3 times, once was an unannounced visit. Each time the staff was friendly and helpful. My son and daughter fell in love with this place. They loved the trampoline park, the petting zoo, and the campground dog "spirit".

If you love family camping they have it, if you love kitsch, they have it, but more importantly, they have some serious hiking trails! You can take it easy or put a pack on your kids and take them into the wild-something I did and my kids are still trying to figure out if they hate me for or not.

The motel rooms appear to not be currently functional due to flooding this past winter. The owner is trying to bring the property back up to speed after a rough winter of flooding and tornadoes that passed over the property. There are new staff on board for the season. One staff member has hiked the entire AT twice, the last time at age 70! With a side trail off the AT of about 1.5 miles, this would be a nice resupply site for thru hikers. The air there feels good and you know you are tucked in a true mountain cove with streams and waterfalls roaring on either side. The prices reflect more of a "glamping" experience but the natural camping experience there is worth the visit.

Product Review:

As a Dyrt Ranger, I get to test out products and on this trip we tested out two Gregory Backpacks and a Gregory hydration pack. This was the first backpacking trip for our family of four. I backpacked before kids all the time and once I had babies, I made the decision to only car camp until the kids could carry their own packs. That seems like yesterday but wouldn't you know, it's already 9 year later and so we suited up to hike up to the AT for the night. We used the stout 75- men's navy blue pack, the Icarus 40- youth cape green, and the hydration 2L reservoir.

The stout worked great for my husband, who carried the most weight and has developed quite the dad bod over the last 9 years. As a result, he needed the extra adjustment features such as the torso, hip belt, and sleeping bag entry adjustment.

The 2 L hydration reservoir, well we fought over who got to carry that. It fits nicely into the pack interior and Gregory has hat great hook and h2o hole. The thing that separates the Gregory hydration pack is that there is a little magnetic clip that fits in your pack and clips to the spout. It makes for easy access. The wide mouth opening makes it easy to fill but screwing on the top can be tricky. If you don't lay it completely flat then it leaks. The first night I lost all my water this way.

The Icarus 40 youth pack was great for my 9 year old. It was his first trek. He was able to carry his pack, his sleep pad, some of the food and some tent poles. He had a Nalgene bottle in the side pocket hat kept sliding out when he leaned over and that was frustrating for him. But his shoulders were not sore at the end of the trip and he said at the end that he liked backpacking after all (the first few climbs were not so easy). Speaking of, this pack can handle being flung to the ground in frustration by a 9 year old who is exhausted and just wants to "go home". Remedy- just keep strapping it back on, apply plenty of water and encouragement and in about 2 miles "backpacking isn't so bad".

Gregory is a great brand to get into if you are starting or restarting backpacking. They are cost effective, long lasting, and have been around a long time. Not to mention, when you call the 800 number there is an option to be put through to someone immediately if you are on the AT.

We are traveling in our 33 ft travel trailer. We work full time remotely and use our hotspot to do so. The Verizon service in the rv section of the campground is very poor and we were not able to use the hotspot. The service is better higher up in the campground. The campground does offer wifi (paid) that was fast enough for me to work and do video calls. They kindly offered us vouchers for a couple of days as well.

The campground is super cute. The pool and hot tub area is gorgeous. They have a coffee lounge with communal board games which is cute. The bathrooms and laundry room are clean and very nice. Our dog also loved their dog park.

Their check in system was perfect for our late check in.

We visited in the winter and it was cold enough that they had us turn our water off every night at 6 which was inconvenient but not a real problem considering how nice the showers are.

We stayed in spot A1 which felt a little small because it butts right up to a yurt, but it was enough space for us. Especially considering how cold it was, we didn’t spend much time on the patio.

This is a BEAUTIFUL outdoor resort with five star amenities, truly. We have camped here as a tent camper, and in our camper. The sites are small and close together, but this is still one of my favorite places to camp. You don't feel like you're on top of one another. The grounds are well appointed, landscaped, and maintained. The playground is beautiful and the kids loved it. There is a community firepit with rocking chairs around it, and it looks like it came out of a Martha Stewart magazine. The bathrooms were FABULOUS. SERIOUSLY. I've never wanted to bathe I'm a campground bathroom before, but I do it out of necessity. Well these bathrooms were luxurious and modern and so SO clean. I gladly bathed in the showers here and felt so clean afterwards! Lol. The bathrooms are locked with a pinpad and the codes are given upon check-in so you know random people aren't walking in off of the highway or anything. There is a pool on site, but we stayed in the fall so we didn't get to use it. There are also cabins and yurts available and they look really nice! There is a coffee shop on site also, with a playroom for small kids, and nice comfy chairs to lounge in. The coffee comes from a local artisan coffee roasters up the road and it was so tasty. The owners live onsite and are present and interacting with the campers. They run the office and shop, they checked us in and sold us our firewood. One weekend we were there (Fall) they had a live band for entertainment, on a Saturday evening, and it was awesome. They also had a S'mores bar set up for the kiddos, so that was pretty cool. We spent a lot of time at the community firepit meeting people and having adult beverages. It was wonderful! The campground also offers free WiFi and cable so we hooked up our TV and tailgated (during football season) and had an awesome time.

Upsides: lots of sites to choose from! I prefer to be the furthest from other sites so I chose the primitive site near the end and it was great. Bathhouse was clean and wifi was available in the cabin near it. Creek ran through the campground so the sounds were really relaxing!

Downsides: Groups on the other side of the creek were noisy. It was tolerable thanks to the creek. The site is reachable by bridge but there really isn’t parking available for the primitive sites. Be careful not to park too close to the creek or you’ll get stuck.