Posted on 11/07/2009 4:44:57 AM PST by GoldStandard
The Great Smoky Mountains aren't so great after all, according to National Geographic Traveler magazine.
The online version of the publication's sixth annual rating of 133 worldwide travel destinations characterized the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as "a national treasure surrounded by a bathtub ring of ugly, unplanned development."
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
planned development is ugly
Spell checker here has gone Crazy!!! That is Gatlinberg, not Gutenberg. Don’t know how that happened. My bad.
A case of a magazine saying what they actually are in their title?
Nothing more than environmentalists dissing prosperity.
Try Michigan’s upper Penninsula if you seek wilderness that isn’t surrounded with tourist traps.
The smokies...nobody goes there anymore...it’s too crowded...
A very succinct description.
When I was a kid back in the 80s, we'd occasionally drive down to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg for the weekend. Back then, they were two rather small towns with a few tourist traps, hotels, and restaurants. Now, driving through them, you might as well be driving through any overcrowded, congested city strip.
The town of Cherokee, on the reservation of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, is the eastern gateway to the Great Smokies. It’s been one of the more gloriously gaudy tourist traps you’ll ever encounter, for as long as anyone I know can remember, back to the thirties at least. Antique motor courts with teepees instead of cabins, you name it, if it’s touristy, it’s in Cherokee.
Sounds like Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge have finally and completely caught up, on the TN side.
If people didn’t want it, it wouldn’t be there. The park is the park; it’s gigantic, and it’s relatively unmolested. Private lands are private lands, on or off a reservation. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. Put up or shut up. Buy it and conserve it, if your conscience or your aesthetic sensibilities are offended.
Exactly. I would agree that all the commercial BS in Pigeon Forge is a blight, but it isn't part of the GSMNP. The author should take a hike up to Mt. Leconte or hike to Gregory Bald in late June when the flame azaleas are in full bloom.
Those places have been a blot on the landscape for YEARS. Pigeon Forge really started getting tacky after Dolly Parton opened her theme park there, but even when I was a teenager it was tacky. And the road on the other side of Pigeon Forge narrows suddenly, backing up the traffic.
There are many other routes into the park. Just avoid going in from the north.
The other side wasn't so bad. How are things in NC these days?
Only go through Pigeon Forge and G'burg for the BSA Winterfest.
People need to make a living somehow, I guess.
We went by there about a year ago. We had exactly the same reaction. My wife and I will never go back there.
Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice
State motto of Michigan. If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you.
Oh, jeez. I was told at the court house when I went to pay my property taxes last year that Dolly and Reba Mcentire recently bought 1500 acres about 15 miles north of me in Van Buren County, TN. Rumor has it that they are planning a theme park. Disney supposedly also bought land up that way, east of McMinnville, TN. Reba bought a house and land about 2 miles from where I live now a couple of years ago. I've seen her several times driving around in town. I'm seriously hoping that this area doesn't turn into another Pigeon Forge.....ugh!
Michigan UP - where men are men and the women have the best pasties...
But I'd say that in this economy one of the last things you have to worry about is major development. Every cloud etc. etc.
I’m a WCU alum, so I know Cherokee well. It was just up the road a ways from campus. Due to a peculiarity in the laws at the time, we road-tripped to Gatlinburg for legal mixed drinks (perverse thinking and dangerous, I know, but that’s the way it was).
I didn’t much care for Gatlinburg then, but plenty of people seemed to enjoy it, so more power to them. The only thing that held my interest in Gatlinburg, though, was that ski slope with a base of artificial “snow” ... silica or something. Ober Gatlinburg. Haven’t heard of it in years, so I suppose it went out of business. I was on National Ski Patrol at Cataloochee in NC for a few seasons.
I read the article several times, but no where does it say that anybody is FORCED to go there. Don’t like crowded, touristy places? Go somewhere else. Or stay home. The Nat’l Geographic crowd is all about travel, but only for a certain class of people...someone who is surely above playing putt-putt golf, for god’s sake. And don’t even speak of riding in a go-cart. It’s so...so red-necky. Everyone knows that go-carts lead inevitably to...NASCAR.
About 10 years ago I drove the Blue Ridge Parkway from end to end, Waynesboro, VA to Cherokee, NC. When I got off in Cherokee, I ended up on the two-lane highway heading for Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge (US 441?), through Newfound Gap from NC into TN. The traffic was HORRIBLE because of all the RVs and campers. And then, once I got off the mountain and into Pigeon Forge...my God. All the way to I-40, it was just like you said, mile after mile of tourist traps and strip malls with hellish traffic. I don’t begrudge people making money, far from it, but it was definitely a culture shock to come out of the Smokies and see a solid wall of water parks and gift shops.
}:-)4
You are contributing to the proliferation of mispronunciations of that word.;-)
Until she went off to college my oldest was a BSA Venturer, and we went every January to the big Winterfest - a BSA convention of Venturers and Explorers in Gatlinburg. They gave a special discount for skiing, so we always went up the mountain. Skiing's o.k. I guess for the SE, nowhere near as good as Beech, very icy like most eastern sites, limited number of slopes open as a general rule.
And I have to say the kids in our crew had a ball in G'burg. Just the sort of stuff teenagers love . . . and relatively safe and harmless, really. I just told myself to appreciate it for what it is . . . I really tried!
This country is going to be solid, coast-to-coast housing anyway, because that’s what our economy now relies on. What will we do when we run out of space? We’re in a world of hurt.
WCU campus is really pretty, by the way. We used to camp out a LOT in that area when the kids were little, and backpacking when they got older. Often passed that way going down to “Jack the Dipper” to get the kids ice cream after a kayaking trip on the Tuck.
Yeah, except I don't live in Van Buren County. It's very rural up that way and if the county commissioners are anything like Sequatchie County where I live all they are going to see and react to is dollar signs. We've seen that one play out several times over the past 10 years or so.
But I'd say that in this economy one of the last things you have to worry about is major development. Every cloud etc. etc.
Maybe so, but the economy doesn't seem to be slowing construction down much here at all. I know of a half dozen new houses that have been started in the past month or so within a few miles of my home. Mostly, it's folks fleeing the Northeast and California. A few from Minnesota and Florida, too.
If you don't live in the county, then at least YOUR taxes won't go up . . . .
As a pilot of more than 30 years I can tell you with absolute clarity that we are a long, long, long way from running out of space, even in the east. We'll run out of water long before we run out of space.....
OK, OK, it’s not pronounced “UP” - it’s “Yoop”.
Unfortunately, they already are. My property taxes have tripled in the past 8 years, mostly due to wealthy folks moving here from Florida or California building "McMansions". I've argued this point three times with the County Commissioners and have yet to get a straight answer as to why my property value goes up simply by virtue of someone from California moving in and building an 8000 sq.ft house somewhere else in the county. My road still needs paving, the publik skools are terrible, our fire protection is all volunteer and we have no police protection to speak of at all. I'm not complaining, but I don't think I should have to be paying taxes for those things when we don't get them. I'm fine without it. In fact, I'd rather not have those things. I don't like not having them and still having to pay for it, though.
The hiking in the GRSM is wonderful. The trash left by some hikers and horsemen is horrible.
Interesting. Seems all County Commissions are the same:o(
Agreed. The water problem is more immediate.
Driven across Wyoming lately ? Or central Nevada ? Western Colorado ?
My property taxes have tripled in the past 8 years, mostly due to wealthy folks moving here
And, how do you like the Tennessee sales tax?/ highest in the nation, 10% in most area’s of Tn.
No one could possibly want the job for the excitement, that I am sure of. In terms of excitement, County Commission meetings are on par with watching grass grow. It is no wonder that people of modest means will mortgage their home to fund their campaign for County Commissioner, Sheriff, and other relatively low paying elective offices. We had a fairly serious war going on here over the County Executive job a few years ago. The guy who ultimately won the war just so happened to also be a burgeoning real estate developer. Kinda makes you go "hmmmmm"......
Drive down out of the Black Hills into Wyoming, and you will see some space...believe me. Same effect coming down from the Big Horns to the east on Routes 14 or 16. What a view!
If I have a choice between a 10% sales tax and a 10% income tax, I'll take the sales tax every time. I would much rather pay tax on what I spend as opposed to what I earn.....
we went to that area this summer for vacation, I thought it was beautiful!
Yes indeed, got family up there, just wish it was warmer !
I delivered an airplane from Chattanooga to Moriarty, NM, a couple of years ago. West Texas and eastern New Mexico are made up of miles and miles of miles and miles. I don't think folks can appreciate how desolate it is out there until you see if from 3500' for hours and hours and hours.
I drove across central Nevada a few years back on Hwy 50. I went at least three hours without even seen a telephone pole....much less another person....
I broke down on hwy 50 once in my old vw bug. Let me tell you, I learned the feeling of desolate that day.
NC Mtns in the fall Yes it is absolutely beautiful in the NC / TN Mtns - in the Great Smokies..... Fine if the National Geographic is telling people not to go there - all the better for those who adore the beauty there and long to see them up close and personal! Here are some more views from WRAL TV website - discussed and posted on FR Here The glorious pictures all found here: WRAL TV website.
I have never been there. I accept your word for the description. People vote with their feet (wallets). If a majority of people didn't want all those BUSINESSES there, they would go broke and disappear. SOMEBODY supports these businesses. Judging by your descriptions, it is wall to wall businesses. I guess your “normal” level of commercialization wasn't enough to satisfy the general public. THEY wanted more. Maybe Obama should annex the land and bulldoze the businesses. Then you and your friends can appreciate this area the way YOU would like. Maybe this area should be CLOSED to the public altogether, to PROTECT it from people as well as nearby capitalism. Of course the government would allow “scientists, researchers, & party elites to use it. If you don't like it the way it is, don't go there. Apparently, a lot of people do. Welcome to America.
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