After several nights of not sleeping at a busy campground at another national park, I was prepared for no sleep here. But that was not the case.
Though this campground is HUGE, the sites are not piled on top of each other. Our site, B112, was surrounded by shrubs under the canopy of trees which provided tons of privacy. Plus the accessible site across from us was empty during our whole stay, which added to the privacy.
The bathroom was a nice short walk away, but the proximity did have some drawbacks. The vent sounds like a diesel truck idling nonstop. At night people using flashlights and headlamps walking away from the bathroom shine them into your tent. The smell sometimes wafted over as well.
The bugs when we got here were kinda crazy. They don’t bite but they swarm your head and try to enter every orifice for some reason. A head net was helpful to get the tent and screen room set up.
Though there is privacy and it was fairly quiet in the afternoon, at night it can get loud with kids running around and being noisy.
Like all huge, busy campgrounds, it gets very Smoky in the evenings.
No cell service. We went to the visitor center and connected to the WiFi if we needed to do something online. The camp store has a lot of stuff! The showers are $5 for 10 minutes. Kind of a steep price. Make sure you test that it works BEFORE you get set up and get naked. My first quarter got jammed and I had to redress and pack up to move to a different one.
You will definitely see deer in the campground as they walk through and browse the understory. They are unafraid of humans unless directly approached (I did not do this, but I watched someone’s child do it).
And finally, the fireflies are spectacular. At dusk, the ground shimmers, and then after they disperse, you will still see them flit by the tent throughout the night.
