Roamstead Smoky Mountains Campground — Hotel in Gatlinburg

We stayed at Roamstead back in May with our almost 4 year old and our 2 year old. As a mom of littles it was hard to know what we were walking into so I'm writing this review for all the parents of toddlers/preschoolers to hopefully make the most of their experience at this wonderful campground! Anything with ** around it marks things to consider adding to your packing list.

We stayed in a Pine cabin. It was beautifully done and we were so impressed by the modern updates while keeping the classic cabin feel. The streamside view was stunning and the sound of the water was tranquil enough to have us thinking about our next visit before we had even stayed the first night! 😂

However, in hindsight I would have chosen the Oak for our family dynamics. In the Pine, because the kids slept right next to the kitchen, we woke up the kids most mornings while trying to pack our food for the day's hike. And once the kids were asleep for the night or for naps, it was hard to use the cabin for anything functional because we were concerned about waking them. The Oak has the separate bedrooms with doors that I think would decrease the amount of wake ups and allow a little more freedom to move around the cabin while kids are sleeping.

Hands down my favorite part of this experience was taking the kiddos to play in the creek in the summer sun. We brought water shoes and found a clear path down to the water. There was some poison ivy around the streams, so be watchful how you enter. I brought some beach toys like shovels, a small plastic dump truck, and a set of kids play pots and pans and a spoon. Despite the cold water, my two year old was absorbed in her play for over a half hour as she scooped sand, rocks, and water into her toy pot, making "soup." The toys also came in handy when the adults were on the porch or sitting around the fire, as the kids would scoop rocks from the pathways into the dump truck or "cook" with the natural materials they could find.

We came to the Smokies with the intentions of hiking. Since we don't mind early mornings, we found the best rhythm for us was getting up at 5/5:30a and getting prepped for the day before the kids woke. We would hike in the mornings and eat lunch on the way home to keep the kids awake. We put the kids down for naps and just hung out till they woke. We saved afternoons for having a fire, swimming, and/or playing in the creek. Hubs brought a camping Blackstone and kept it on the porch to cook dinner each night. We put the kids to bed around 7p and got to enjoy the rest of our evening around the fire!

I noticed a bottle of cleaning product in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. If you are big into kids' safety, I would bring a cabinet lock that goes on the outside of the cabinet, around the cabinet door knobs. Other than that, at kids-level there's just the things to be expected like lamps and outlets. The mini fridge was also something the kids wanted to get into 🙃

The nearest Walmart was 25-ish minutes from Roamstead and it was rather annoying to have to leave the site to get groceries. In hind sight I wish we would have ordered Walmart to pick up on the way TO our campsite to eliminate that extra trip to the grocery store. The Dollar General down the road does have some food, including produce like bananas, apples, and oranges - so that filled in the blanks for us after our initial Walmart trip.

There was hot lunch/dinner food on site but it was just pizza, chicken tenders, and mini corn dogs. Just down the street was a taco truck and that had decent food.

My husband ran some of the Maddron Bald Trail right off the campground. He said there was no one else on it. It is steep and extremely rocky. It is forested with lots of streams, and he truly thinks if you went out there in the early morning that you'd see a bear - but we did not see one while in the area.

The pool kids' area was just 1' deep and the kids LOVED it. Pool was a bit brisk on cloudy days but felt great on hot afternoons.

Overall our stay at Roamstead was an AMAZING experience! See...

We just got done with our tent/yurt stay at Roamstead! As a non camper I LOVED it . My husband is a camper and loved it as well! I think it was a fantastic mix of rugged / amenities that you could ever want in a camp site! Staff: upon arrival we were greeted buy a lovely staff member and we were checked in super easy! We also were given rules and a paper to let us know where our campsite would be and what amenities are located around the site. The staff members are extremely and easily accessible for whatever you need and very kind to answer any questions whether you go in or call.

Site: the whole site itself is pretty well planned out and thought about! The creek runs through the entire property in each area whether it be tents, yurts, cabins or lodges are all nicely put around the creek so everybody has access to the lovely babbling water... The whole area is spacious yet cozy so you're not confused about where things are and it's pretty easy to find the bathrooms, showers and lodge. It's beautiful with trees that are very well taken care of and thoughtfully placed bathrooms and trash cans. I can't wait to come back to use the pool!

Food: the coffee on site is genius! When I get out of my tent in the freezing cold I do not want to be trying to make coffee. I got a mocha both times and it was consistently delicious my husband got a cappuccino and he loved it. He owns a coffee shop up in Blue Ridge Georgia and we use the same coffee machine so it's definitely top-notch! Absolutely loved the free coffee in the morning and the granola with milk. My daughter always enjoyed her hot chocolate. We got a Sicilian Pizza that was gluten free and it was so tasty. Amazing that they offer gluten-free choices! My daughter got the corn dogs and ate every single one. So good.

Vibe: when we went it was kind of chilly and rainy. However the vibe was beautiful. The trees were all green and Lush and they keep the grounds nice with gravel so that it doesn't get muddy. But only thing that was kind of stinky was the tent sites get extremely muddy when it's wet. I'm not a camping expert at all! But I would think maybe gravel would make it less muddy!? But maybe that's the thing you're supposed to do for a tent site but all our stuff got muddy.

Ease of changing site: the second camp day and after seeing all the mud and cold and dampness I decided to see if they would let me rent a yurt for one night. She kindly got me into a yurt that fast and it was an absolute beautiful experience!!! The entire process to change was simple.

Activities: this camp ground offers a variety of activities for young children all the way to teens. My daughter really enjoyed going around trying to find the bears and working on the puzzles inside the adventure book and drawing pictures to earn a special treat! There were really fun activities stationed throughout the site. She loved trying to climb up the rock wall and play in the playground was definitely her favorite! Again I cannot wait for them to open the pool because that will be a great plus! Little swings were hidden in the area and sometimes they had different games like croquette outside. Inside there were books to read as well as games to play

Yurt: clean and beautiful with wonderful temperature control! The yurt was spotless with a full or queen bed plus a bunk bed for my daughter. She was so excited to sleep on the top! It was the first time she slept out of our bed! (This may be the start of something, thank you yurt lol) I loved that they had ever corner beautifully thought of with lamps or storage. The fridge with large and the towels were perfect! Overall experience was fantastic. Looking to try to camp it get a...

My husband and I were so excited about our stay at Roamstead. I think we set ourselves up for disappointment by relying on the website, gallery photos, and site map to be accurate of the campground. We booked site 22, HUGE mistake! Due to work obligations for us both on Friday, we had to arrive late and after dark. Our arrival time was almost 10:00pm and the office closes for check in at 10:00pm. Once we realized how horrible Site 22 was, there was no one in the office to speak to and we weren’t told about anyone on site to take care of concerns after hours. We were traveling in an SUV and hauling our teardrop camper, approximately 12 feet in length. The site 22 description online states that the space will host an RV up to 38 feet plus one vehicle. This is deceitful and absolutely not possible in Site 22! In fact as we drove around the campground before tackling the parking of our camper in 22, we noticed that nearly all of the campsites are on top of each other. We have been camping many many times and have never seen sites so close. Once we got help from our next door neighbor to help us back into our site, the anxiety was setting in even more. The site was nothing like the pictures online. Site 22 should not even be a site in our opinions. It is incredibly too small for even our tiny tear drop camper and vehicle. There was no way we could fit our canopy alongside our camper. The biggest problem was that the site next to us was virtually on top of us with their fire pit right on top of our site. As the neighbors had a fire going and were enjoying their family time much after 10 pm (quiet hours), sitting in our vehicle, we could hear every word being spoken. Never in our camping adventures, have we been so close the our campsite neighbors that we could hear every word being spoken. In addition, I have allergies and asthma and unfortunately one of my triggers is close contact to smoke, specifically cigarette smoke and burning wood smoke. Why would I go camping one might ask? In our other camping experiences, I am always able to move myself away from the smoke by moving around in my own campsite. That was definitely going to be impossible in Site 22. In fact, when we got out after parking to look at how we might could move things around (which we quickly realized was not possible due to NO ROOM), I began having breathing problems so back to the vehicle I had to go. After sitting in our vehicle for an additional hour or so discussing how we could possibly make this work, we realized nothing was going to change the circumstances of Site 22 being too small and in super duper proximity to the neighboring site. We were heartbroken as we pulled out and headed home, a four hour drive. Looking at the cancellation policy on the ride home, we realized that basically there is absolutely no acceptable reason that Roamstead will give a refund. Our stay was planned for Friday - Tuesday which equals a lot of money lost. There was no way I could have survived the smoke from the close fire and cigarettes of the neighboring site for that length of time. I had already had to use my inhaler twice before we pulled out. While Roamstead might have been enjoyable with all its fine amenities, we could not stay due to my health concerns which should have not been a problem had Site 22 not been on top of the neighboring site. Lesson learned here is don’t believe what the description states or the photos posted on the Roamstead website. This campground is entirely too crowded for most of the campers providing ZERO privacy outside your camper itself an it is most definitely not...