When we pulled into Norris Dam State Park near Knoxville, Tennessee, we were ready for two weeks of a little bit of everything—exploring, relaxing, and just living the full-time RV life. The park gave us a great spot to settle in, surrounded by East Tennessee’s beautiful hills. While we were excited to check out the area, this wasn’t one of those trips where we were out doing something every single day—life doesn’t stop just because we’re parked somewhere cool!
Over the course of our stay, we dove into local history at the Museum of Appalachia, got a dose of intrigue at Brushy Mountain Prison, and soaked up some stunning views in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Knoxville also had its fair share of surprises, and of course, we squeezed in a few hikes at nearby state parks to round out the adventure.
That said, life as full-time RVers isn’t all play. Between work, chores, and the usual daily grind, we didn’t spend every day exploring. Plus, being late November, some attractions were seasonally closed. But even with a slower pace, we found plenty to love about this slice of Tennessee. Let’s dive into what made our stay at Norris Dam State Park so memorable!
Where We Camped near Knoxville
Our home for two weeks was Norris Dam State Park. Noriss Dam actually has two campgrounds, but the main campground in the larger part of the park is closed seasonally. We stayed in the smaller east campground, which is in the same section of the park as their cabins.
Day 1 (Saturday): Arrival + First Hike
Saturday we left our campground in Roanoke, VA and headed down to Tennessee. As usual, we spent most of our move day setting up camp and getting the lay of the land.
Josh’s dad came down for a few days to visit us while we were in Tennessee and the first activity we all did together was a hike at Norris Dam. We headed over to the other part of the park across the dam to hike the Sinkhole trail and part of Hootin’ Hollow trail.. There’s also a campground in this part of the park, but it was closed for the season. This side of the park is also where the visitor center is- there’s an info desk, store, and a small display about the CCC history of the park.
Day 2 (Sunday): Brushy Mountain Prison and Frozen Head State Park
Our first big adventure with Josh’s dad was visiting Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, which operated from 1896-2009. Brushy is particularly famous for a few reasons- 1) It housed James Earl Ray, who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. and escaped from the prison (but was caught), 2) It was known for especially harsh conditions and was known as the “End of the Line”, 3) Until 1966 inmates were forced to work in nearby coal mines.
Now Brushy is a historic site and tourist attraction with tours, a museum, concerts, a restaurant, and even a distillery. A few years ago Josh and I did a tour of Joliet Prison, and Brushy was very similar, but smaller. But for Josh’s dad, this was an entirely new thing to do and he was very amazed at being able to visit a prison like this.
We started with our self-guided tour which took us into some of the cell blocks, the laundry room, cafeteria, gym, and museum. After our tour, we had lunch at the on-site restaurant, The Warden’s Table, and then did a tasting from the distillery inside the gift shop.
How to Visit Brushy Mountain Prison
9182 Hwy 116, Petros, TN 37845
https://tourbrushy.com/
Closed in winter. Hours change seasonally, but are typically 10:30-7
Self-guided tours $22, Kids $17
Private, public, and special guided tours are also available
After Brushy Mountain, we headed over to the nearby Frozen Head State Park. We had hoped to see both the park’s waterfalls and the mining trail- the infamous coal mines of Brushy Mountain are now part of Frozen Head. We didn’t have time for both, so ended up hiking out to the two waterfalls- DeBord Falls and Emory Gap Falls.
How to Visit Frozen Head State Park
964 Flat Fork Road, Wartburg, TN 37887
https://tnstateparks.com/parks/frozen-head
No fee to enter
Trails close half hour before sunset
Visitor center open 8am-4pm daily
Day 3 (Monday): Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Our campground was about 2 hours from the Smokies, so we debated on driving there or not. But since Josh’s dad came down to visit, it made it more worth it for a day trip. Since we only had a day, we were light on hiking, since we decided we’d rather see more of a variety of sights.
Our first stop was our hardest walk of the day- summiting Kuwohi, which is also the Tennessee high point. As far as summits go, it’s not hard, since you drive most of the way up and then only walk the last mile or so to the top. But it is definitely an uphill walk!
Besides the walk up Kuwohi, we did a few short walks on some of the “quiet walkways” we drove by. These are short trails off the side of the road that are meant to be peaceful easy walks. They took us into different types of natural areas and some came with great scenic views from the parking area too!
After our day exploring the park, we needed to eat! We decided to go full tourist and have dinner at Sunliner Diner in Pigeon Forge. For a touristy themed restaurant, it was actually really good diner food- and the portions were huge!
How to Visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park
https://www.nps.gov/grsm
Check online for road closures
Parking tags are required in the National Park- Daily $5, Weekly $15, Annual $40. Interagency passes are NOT accepted
GRSM covers over 500,000 acres in Tennessee and North Carolina
Day 4 (Tuesday): Antiquing in Clinton, TN
Our last day with Josh’s dad was kind of meh weather-wise, so we decided to do an indoor day. We’re all big antique store fans and the nearby town of Clinton has a bunch of different shops. Not everything was open the day we visited, but we checked out 4 or 5. Some of the shops were definitely overpriced for what they have, and others focus more on primitives (which isn’t our style), but it was still fun to look around. Between all the downtown shops, you could easily spend a day in Clinton.
Check out a list of antique shops in Clinton on the Tennessee Antique Trail website here.
Afterwards we grabbed lunch at Harrison’s Bar & Grill. I got the $10 cheeseburger special- it was simple, but really good! (It does come with more toppings usually, I just like mine plain).
Day 5 (Wednesday): Quiet day at home
I don’t remember if this was a quiet day because of Josh having meetings, weather, or whether we just wanted a day off after multiple days of bigger adventures- but all of those are part of normal life as a full-time RVer. Josh had taken time off work while his dad was visiting, so we had already done more than we usually do this early in a stay somewhere new.
Day 6 (Thursday): Lenoir Museum at Norris Dam State Park
The G.H. Lenoir Museum is part of Norris Dam State Park and shares the history of the area and the dam itself. It’s a pretty basic museum, but it has some neat local artifacts and some really interesting pictures of dam construction. The park ranger working that day was very friendly and it also looks like they pretty regularly do different educational programs.
How to Visit the Lenoir Museum
2121 Norris Fwy, Norris, TN 37828
https://tnstateparks.com/parks/activity-detail/lenoir-museum
Free admission
Wed-Sun 9am-5pm
Day 7 (Friday): The Secret City of Oak Ridge, TN
The main reason we were in this area of Tennessee was so that I could check off one of my big bucket list places- Oak Ridge, TN. Oak Ridge is also known as The Secret City and was instrumental to the Manhattan Project in WW2. The whole city was built around government labs and kept a secret from the outside world. I’ve read a few books on Oak Ridge and it has fascinated me for years. Oak Ridge will be getting its own post eventually, but here are a couple photos as a sneak peek.
Day 8 (Saturday): Hiking at Norris Dam State Park
Saturday we finally got out to hike some of the trails in the east part of Norris Dam State Park near our campsite. We hiked the Christmas Fern Loop Trail and part of another connecting trail and got some good views of the lake! I don’t know that there were any more Christmas ferns than I saw in other parts of the woods, though, so the name was a little disappointing.
Day 9 (Sunday): Knoxville Zoo and Ijams Nature Center
Our first activity for our Knoxville day was the Knoxville Zoo. We try to only visit AZA accredited zoos, so even though we’ve been near a few zoos this year, we hadn’t visited any yet. The Knoxville Zoo was nice, and had good animal enclosures, but I don’t think we’d recommend going off-season. We expected some animals to not be outside because of the weather, but there were enough off-display that we think they should have had a reduced admission rate. We also might be spoiled because our home zoo is Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, which is huge and probably one of the top 10 zoos in the country.
How to Visit the Zoo Knoxville
3500 Knoxville Zoo Drive, Knoxville, TN 37914
https://www.zooknoxville.org/
Open daily 9am-4pm
Adults $26.95, Kids 3-12/Seniors/College Students $21.95, Kids 2+ Under/Activity Military/Veterans Free
After the zoo, we continued our Knoxville day by heading over the the Ijams Nature Center. Inside the nature center there’s some animal exhibits and after checking those out we headed out to try some of the hiking trails. We did a couple hikes near the nature center, and then drove over to Mead’s Quarry Lake for a hike around the quarry. The most famous trail is the River Trail, but when we visited it was closed because of recent storm damage.
How to Visit Ijams Nature Center
2915 Island Home Avenue, Knoxville, Tenn., 37920.
https://www.ijams.org/
Grounds open daily 8am-dusk
Visitor Center open Sun-Fri 10am-5pm, Saturday 9am-5pm
Parking $5/car/day (check online for free parking days!)
Day 10 (Monday): Boba with Wild Ones Smoky Mountains
Like usual, we met up with some local members of Wild Ones (a nonprofit that promotes native plants). We always have the local people choose where to meet and this time we met members of the Smoky Mountains chapter at Hey Bear Cafe. Josh had never had boba before and it’s been a long time since I’ve had any, so I was very excited! I got the brown sugar black tea with boba and milk foam and since Josh doesn’t drink tea he got the galaxy lemonade with blueberry popping boba. Both drinks were so good!
Hey Bear Cafe also has a food truck park in the back of the cafe building and a food hall in another location in Knoxville- so it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area!
How to Visit Hey Bear Cafe
9036 Middlebrook Pike, Knoxville TN 37923
https://heybearcafe.com/
Sun-Thurs 11am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11am-9:30pm
Day 11 (Tuesday): Quiet day at home
Tuesday was another low key day where we didn’t do any adventuring.
Day 12 (Wednesday): The Museum of Appalachia
The Museum of Appalachia was even better than we expected! The focus of the museum is celebrating and preserving the culture, history, and heritage of the Appalachian region. The museum has a large property with over 30 historic buildings, a couple different indoor museum spaces, a large shop, restaurant, and even a campground. We drove by this all the time, and finally made time for it towards the end of our visit and are so glad we did! Our favorite part was the Appalachia Hall of Fame. I thought it was just going to be about famous people from the region, but it’s actually a collection of artifacts and stories from all kinds of Appalachians. There are tons of hand written signs from the founder, John Rice Irwin, and it makes for such a fun and charming experience.
The outside of the museum is their pioneer village with all kinds of different cabins, barns, and other buildings. It’s also a working farm! The buildings are real places in Appalachia that were moved to the museum over the years.
How to Visit the Museum of Appalachia
2819 Andersonville Hwy., Clinton, TN 37716
https://www.museumofappalachia.org/
Adults $20, Seniors/Military/First Responders $18, Kids 6-17 $10
Hours change seasonally, so check online before going. The most common hours are weekdays 9-5 and weekends 9-6
Day 13 (Thursday): Thanksgiving
Thursday was Thanksgiving and we were really curious to see what the campground vibes were like on a big holiday. There were some people we could tell were there longer term like us that stayed, but also a few families that came in specifically for Thanksgiving, which seemed interesting.
Day 14 (Friday): Heading Home for the Holidays
Friday it was time to leave Tennessee. While most full-time RVers had already headed south for winter, we were heading north so we could get home to Chicagoland for the holidays. We spent Friday night at a Harvest Host in Indiana (more on that here!) and then got back home Saturday just in time for the cold!
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