The Difference Between Saturday and Sunday in Gatlinburg

We normally like to spend our time here during the week. Gatlinburg can be a real bear to navigate on the weekends (pardon the pun). Since we stay in town, we don’t worry much about traffic. However, it can be just as bad when there are thousands roaming the Parkway during the day. This is an easy topic to discuss, given the fact we are here and have a bit of experience with the chasm that exists between a typical Saturday and Sunday in Gatlinburg.

I suppose some of you know that this weekend was a big Jeep gathering in the area. Anytime there’s a car event in Pigeon Forge, you can bet your bottom dollar the spillage will creep into its nearby tourist haven. This was definitely the case this weekend. The Great Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion was an event held at the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge, but you could be fooled into thinking it was also a Gatlinburg gathering. You couldn’t observe more than six vehicles on the road before seeing at least one Jeep in the group. It’s just plain reality. Keep this in mind if you favor Gatlinburg over Pigeon Forge. You have to check the event schedule in both places to gauge whether it’s worth dealing with the influx of visitors.

When we found out a week prior, there was not an iota of regret. We were going no matter what. Every single one of us needed this vacation more than ever, and we weren’t going to be deterred by the gaggle of rugged off-road vehicles.

We arrived early afternoon on Friday, and for the rest of the day, we really didn’t see anything beyond what we expected on a typical Friday, except for an exceptionally high variety of Jeeps cruising the Gatlinburg strip. It certainly didn’t rise to the level of annoyance.

Saturday was an altogether different battle. The emergence of the heat was paralleled by the onslaught of tourist foot and vehicle traffic. It was packed. We’ve definitely seen busier, but without the Jeep Invasion, it typically would not rise to this level of bustle on the final weekend of August.

While Saturday was a struggle, Sunday was a rigid dichotomy. The heat built up into the early afternoon, but the crowds never materialized. In fact, peak traffic happened during this time, but it died off quickly. I expected this to happen sooner because of check-out times. As the day wore on, crowds only got thinner. It was stunning how slow it became, especially when it was so blessed busy on Saturday.

I actually don’t let the crowds ruin our vacation, but there’s no denying we enjoy ourselves more when it isn’t so darn congested. In short, today (Sunday) was a good day. Maybe I’ll go into detail in a future post, but it was one of those memorable days you want to bottle up and save for the rainy, cold days. While it’s not realistic to expect, it’s one you wish to cherish. And when you do have a bad day, it can give you hope there will be another gold star one.