Smoky Mountain Visitor Center — Attraction in Franklin

This is a well-maintained facility. There is ample green space to stretch your legs or walk the dog. There are several nice shaded picnic tables, and a large parking area. The restrooms and gift shop are immaculate. I really like the NC side of the smokies, as it is much less crowded and less of a tourist trap; The scenery in and around the Nantahala National Forest is just as beautiful as the Smoky Mountain National Park, but has much less of a tourist vibe. If you are returning for a second visit to the Smoky Mountains, consider making the area near this visitor's center (Franklin, NC) home-base for your stay, you won't be disappointed. Also if you have an interest in geology, minerals, or rock collecting, this area is fertile with beautiful natural stones that can be purchased very resonably. Spend a little time chatting up the gift shop emoloyees and maintenance staff, they were very informative with regards to some lesser known/locally known areas that don't necessarily appear...

On Christmas Eve my five children and I were driving from Mobile, AL to Gatlinburg, TN and broke down at the welcome center. A couple people tried to help me jump the car with no success. Mr. Al, the security guard here was onlooking for about an hour, for what I now know was to make sure we were safe. As a mom, you try to have eyes everywhere and I did notice his truck from the time we broke down. When the first gentleman who tried to jump my car was unsuccessful, Mr. Al stepped in and made his presence known to let me know we were not alone, and suggested we find a place to stay quickly since the snow was coming down harder along with the hail (before the snow/hail got that bad, he was kind enough to say if we needed to we could stay the night there and get towed the following day). While I was in a state of panic trying to see where to go and how to get there in a place I did not know yet, he was there for us- told me he would keep the car safe overnight- and went above and beyond, any...

We’ve been here before, and were impressed with the large parking lot, clean restrooms, and gift shop. So today (12/4/22) we stopped again to use the bathrooms. On this cold day, the water was warm, the soap smelled like almonds and I had a choice between paper towels or a hot air hand blower.

We visited the gift shop. Nice woman behind the counter asked if we needed help with anything. We meandered over to the tee shirts which were 50% off. Some raincoats were $39.95. I looked at the bookmarks, magnet butterfly gift cards, homemade cloth soup bowl warmers, and jewelry. There was lots to look out and buy. As we walked to the exit doors, the nice woman thanked us for visiting & wished us a good day. We almost bought the firewood by the door. It looked like a good price!

As we ambled down the stairs to our car, we passed the blue recycling and trash cans. No excuse NOT to recycle and no one should be littering with these blue bins...