10 Small Towns in Tennessee to Visit for a Weekend Getaway
The small towns across Tennessee make some of the best weekend getaways in the state. Lynchburg distills the whiskey that made Moore County famous. Bristol recorded the 1927 sessions that launched country music. Gatlinburg opens the door to the Smokies. Ducktown launches rafters onto the Ocoee every summer. Ten of them stretch across both ends of the state, and not one of them disappoints.
Paris
View of the Eiffel Tower replica in Paris, Tennessee.
Paris packs a weekend around a 70-foot Eiffel Tower and the biggest fish fry in the country. The tower stands in Eiffel Tower Park on the south side of town. It is a 1:20 scale of the original, lit after dark. Memphis engineering students built the first version in 1990. The city later raised the rebuilt tower to top a rival replica in Paris, Texas.
The World's Biggest Fish Fry takes over downtown each spring. The week brings parades, a fishing rodeo, and live music. Westfalia Farms opens its hay fields and pastures a few miles out of town. McNeil Park handles the local softball, baseball, and soccer games.
Gatlinburg
Gatlinburg is the easiest weekend base for the Smokies. The town opens straight onto Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the country. Anakeesta is the headline stop in town. A chondola lift carries visitors to the mountaintop park, with ziplines, a ropes course, and a canopy walk. Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies sends sharks, sea turtles, and stingrays over a glass tunnel.
Downtown keeps a slower lane along the main strip. Maddi Mae's Café and Creamery makes a good afternoon stop. The Mysterious Mansion runs a walk-through haunted house with trick doors and dead ends.
Bristol
Bristol earns a weekend on its music history alone. The 1927 Bristol Sessions made it the recording birthplace of country music. Producer Ralph Peer captured the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers on a portable rig downtown. Congress made the title official in 1998. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum tells that story today. The Paramount Bristol stages live shows inside a restored 1931 Art Deco theater.
State Street runs down the state line, Tennessee on one side and Virginia on the other. Steele Creek Park covers more than 2,000 acres with a lake and close to 20 miles of trails. Bristol Motor Speedway seats more than 140,000 for its NASCAR weekends. The Pinnacle covers the shopping. The Bristol Hotel handles downtown overnights.
Sevierville
Sevierville makes a quieter weekend stop than its Smokies neighbors. The town raised Dolly Parton. A bronze statue of her with a guitar stands on the courthouse lawn downtown. RainForest Adventures keeps more than 100 species of reptiles, birds, and small animals indoors.
Sky High Air Tours flies open-cockpit biplanes 1,000 feet over the foothills. The flights give a wide look at the range. Tanger Outlets pulls the shopping crowd off the parkway.
Loudon
Loudon turns a weekend toward the water on the Tennessee River, just downstream from Knoxville. The Windy Hill Farm and Preserve runs as an all-inclusive resort. Guests get farm-to-table dinners, whiskey tastings, and guided hikes. Tennessee Valley Winery pours its bottles on a green hillside nearby.
The LoCo Drive-In shows new releases on a 35-by-63-foot 4K LED screen. Downtown keeps its old storefronts. General Store Antiques is the stop for slow browsing.
Pigeon Forge
Pigeon Forge can hold a full weekend on Dollywood alone. The park is Dolly Parton's own, with coasters, a water park, and a country-music hall. The Titanic Museum next door holds about 400 artifacts across twenty galleries. The building copies the scale of the ship.
Parrot Mountain and Gardens puts visitors close to rare parrots in an outdoor aviary. The parkway stacks go-kart tracks, mini-golf, and pancake houses end to end. Inns and cabins across town take the year-round traffic.
Ducktown
Ducktown is the weekend pick for whitewater. Rafters run the Ocoee River, host of the 1996 Olympic whitewater events on its upper section. Ocoee Rafting books trips through about five miles of Class III and IV rapids. Wildwater pairs the same water with zipline canopy tours.
The town grew up around copper, not tourism. A century of smelting once stripped the surrounding hills bare for miles. The Ducktown Basin Museum tells that story from the old Burra Burra Mine site. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sewanee
Sewanee makes a slow mountain weekend around the University of the South. The school owns most of the town across a 13,000-acre campus it calls the Domain. The Sewanee Natural Bridge stands a few miles off. The sandstone arch rises about 25 feet and spans 50. The Mountain Goat Trail follows an old coal railroad bed between Sewanee and Monteagle. The paved path runs close to five miles.
Shenanigans is the bar and grill locals name first. The kitchen pairs draft beer with live-music nights. The Sewanee Inn books rooms with views toward the plateau edge.
Savannah
Savannah is a river-town weekend built on catfish and Civil War history. The town earned the title Catfish Capital of the World in 1953. A local businessman talked the postmaster into stamping it on the town's outgoing mail. Savannah lines the Tennessee River in Hardin County, a short drive from the Shiloh battlefield.
The Tennessee River Museum covers river life from the mound builders through the steamboat years. Cherry Mansion overlooks the water downtown. General Grant used it as his headquarters before the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. Tennessee Street Park gives families a five-acre stretch of splash pad, gardens, and walking paths. A bowling alley and ice rink are nearby for rainy afternoons.
Lynchburg
Lynchburg is a one-tank weekend built around Jack Daniel's. The distillery has made whiskey here since the 1860s. Moore County itself stayed dry for generations. Several guided tours end with tastings and a walk past the cave spring that feeds every batch.
Miss Mary Bobo's has served family-style Southern dinners since 1908. The former boarding house still books its seats well ahead. The Moore County Jail held prisoners into the early 1900s. It now keeps local artifacts from that era as a small museum.
Two Days Is Enough Time
The best Tennessee getaways fit inside a single tank of gas. Pigeon Forge stacks theme parks and pancake houses below the Smokies. Savannah fries catfish on the Tennessee River and keeps its Civil War history downtown. Sewanee runs quiet under a mountain campus. Paris lights a 70-foot tower after dark. Loudon slows everything down on the riverfront. Whatever corner of the state is closest, the next two free days are already covered.
