Best Campgrounds near Harriman, TN

Owners are wonderful. The grounds are well maintained and kept there is a strict policy of no parking or driving on the grass and when you see it, you’ll understand. I thoroughly enjoyed walking, barefoot through it to the fields and appreciated highly the effort they put into keeping it so beautiful. You can enjoy a day lounging on the little river. They offer free lounge, chairs, canoes, and kayaks to use for campers. If you’d like to tube you can bring your own or swim across the river to River Rage and rent a tube which is what I did. You can have a fire at night either bring your own pit or they will supply you one free of charge and deliver it to your site. They sell bundles of firewood for five dollars, which is half the price of other places. There are no picnic tables; however, many bring their own foldable table. The sites are very spacious. My site was C3 on the creek which was dry but still wonderful. They offer Riverside sites as well. I highly recommend this campground.

Start with, campground has great views of the smokes. Getting to it can be tricky as TN-68 has steep grades and decent curves but is doable for all but the absolute longest if rigs. That said, I was looking for a campground that would be well suited to a motorcyclist and the sites are fairly loose gravel and roads are fairly compacted but still gravel. With the steep grade to get to the lower sites, not the best suited for being on 2 wheels, but it is passable. Because sites are loose gravel, leveling can be a challenge is your rig does not auto level. Cell service with T-Mobile not existent. They have WiFi but not very fast.

Staff was great! Fellow campers could have been better people. Way to many KAREN'S. We have 4 dogs. We did everything possible to keep them quiet. Including buying muzzles. We worked with the rangers and staff to get the furtherest away from people. Because of barking. The closest people was a block away. The other campers complained!! Maybe the complaining people should have bought ear plugs!! We did everything possible in concirsation of other campers. The night ranger was not friendly at all. 10 pm he pulled up to tell us to make sure we keep our dogs quiet and to keep the fire down. At that time 10pm everyone was in bed. No one had a fire the whole 6 days we were here. It was like building a fire was illegal. That's how the ranger made me feel about a fire in the fire pit.

My son and I have been twice. The first trip was marred by car issues, but the second trip, we were able to actually camp in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. 

We parked at the Twin Arches Loop National Recreation Trail head, then made our way down into the valley to view the two gorgeous and huge arches there.

As the sun was setting, we found a good place to set up our hammock gear a little ways off of the trail, then we fixed our supper at a nearby over hang, and finally snuggled in for a wonderfully cold night (late march). There was ice on the trees in the shade of some of the overhangs.

It is a nice hike, plenty of interesting areas to set up camp. Fair warning, some of the "stairs" down into the canyon are steep so be prepared.

Make sure you have your permit with you while camping and have a wonderful time in this beautiful valley.