Great Smoky Mountains RV Campgrounds and Length Limits

Last updated October 28, 2026 · By RV National Parks Guide Editorial Team

Great Smoky Mountains has ten frontcountry campgrounds, no entrance fee and almost no hookups, and the size question has a clear answer: if you are over 35 feet, book Smokemont or Cades Cove; if you want electric, Look Rock is the only choice; and whatever you drive, the limit that counts is printed on the individual campsite, not the campground. We pulled the maximum vehicle length Recreation.gov lists for every site in the park and tallied them below, because the park’s own campground pages hand that data off to the booking system.

Two other rules shape an RV trip here. The $5-a-day parking tag does not apply to a rig sitting on its reserved site, but it does apply to the truck you unhook and drive to Laurel Falls. And the park’s one-way back roads, Roaring Fork above all, prohibit anything over 25 feet and anything towing. Everything below is from the National Park Service and Recreation.gov as of October 28, 2026; the park updates its seasonal roads page each spring, so re-check before a 2027 trip.

Every campground, with the sites that fit an RV

All sites were $30 a night in 2026 except Look Rock’s electric sites at $36. Sources: the Recreation.gov facility pages for Smokemont, Cades Cove, Elkmont, Look Rock and Cosby, and the park’s frontcountry camping page. Some sites list no length at all; the counts above cover the ones that do.

Third-party guides quote single figures such as “Cades Cove 40 feet, Elkmont 35, Smokemont 40, Cosby 25.” They are roughly right as ceilings, but they hide the fact that two thirds of Cades Cove is rated under 35 feet and more than half of Smokemont is rated exactly 40. Filter by your length on Recreation.gov and look at the driveway entry (back-in or pull-through) before you fall in love with a loop.

Park-wide rules that apply at every campground

• Reservations are required at all frontcountry campgrounds, on Recreation.gov or 877-444-6777, up to six months ahead. Cades Cove and Smokemont are the only two open all winter, and they require a reservation then too.
• No hookups and no showers anywhere except Look Rock’s 10 electric sites. The 5-amp outlets at some accessible sites are for medical equipment only, with proof required.
• Generators: prohibited 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. park-wide, with loop-by-loop bans on top (below). Quiet hours 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
• Per site: two vehicles maximum, one RV or trailer, six people, check-in 1 p.m., check-out noon. Stay limit 14 consecutive days and 60 days per calendar year.
• Firewood: only USDA- or state-certified heat-treated bundles may be brought in; dead and down wood may be gathered. Concessioners sell certified wood at Cades Cove, Elkmont and Smokemont March through November.
• Bears: every bit of food, every cooler including “bear-resistant” ones, and all scented items must be inside a hard-sided vehicle or camping unit when not in use. Staff impound violations.
• Pass discounts: the Senior and Access passes halve the camping fee; the annual America the Beautiful pass does not. Our pass guide for RVers explains why that is normal.

Smokemont: the park’s big-rig campground

Smokemont sits on the North Carolina side off Newfound Gap Road, a few miles north of Cherokee and the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, and it is the most RV-friendly campground in the park by a wide margin: 81 of 142 sites are rated 40 feet, concentrated in Loop D (33 of them) and Loop F (43), with 45 pull-throughs. It is open year-round with a dump station, flush toilets and water, and no hookups.

Generator rules depend on which loops are open. When D and F are closed for the off-season, generators are allowed in A, B and C from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; when D and F are open, A, B and C go generator-free. The park caps generator noise at 60 decibels. You must check in with the campground office on arrival; in November through April the office opens intermittently and campers must be able to prove occupancy. If you fail to check in by noon the day after your arrival date, the site is a no-show.

Cades Cove: year-round, a store, and a slow loop road

Cades Cove Campground is at the end of Laurel Creek Road on the Tennessee side, beside the 11-mile one-way Cades Cove Loop Road that the park says takes two to four hours to drive and is “typically closed to vehicles on Wednesdays from May through September.” It is open all year; in the off-season only sites C1 to 12 and C26 to 61 are available. A camp store with bike rentals operates May through October, and there is a dump station.

Length is mixed. Six sites are rated 42 feet and 18 are 35 feet, but 39 sites are 24 feet and most of the rest are between 27 and 34. Loop B is the generator loop; Loop C is generator-free while B is open and only becomes generator-friendly, with restricted hours, when B closes for the season. Idling an engine to charge batteries counts as running a generator. No restrictions are posted for RVs on Laurel Creek Road or the Loop Road itself, but the loop is narrow, one-way and crowded, and there is nowhere to turn a 35-footer around if a bear jam stops traffic; leave the rig at the site and drive the loop in the tow vehicle.

Elkmont: biggest and busiest, with two traps

Elkmont, eight miles from Gatlinburg at 2,150 feet, is the largest and busiest campground in the park: 200 tent/RV sites with paved driveways plus 20 walk-in tent sites and nine accessible sites. The facility page warns that “extreme slope or length of driveway make certain sites more suitable for tents than RVs,” and the numbers agree: 32 sites are rated 35 feet, 53 are 27 feet, and 69 are 24 feet or less. There are no pull-throughs.

Trap one: there is no dump station at Elkmont. The dump and fill station is about six miles away, across from Sugarlands Visitor Center. Arrive with empty tanks. Trap two: GPS likes to route you in via Wears Valley, Line Springs Road and Metcalf Bottoms, and “RVs and towed trailers are NOT allowed over the bridge at Metcalf Bottoms due to a narrow bridge with weight and length restrictions.” Come in from Gatlinburg or Townsend on Little River Road instead. Generators are allowed 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. but prohibited entirely from May 15 through October 31 in loops A, B, L, M and N. The office is open 9 to 5 and check-in there is mandatory. Elkmont’s 2026 season ran April 3 to November 29.

Look Rock: the only electric sites in the park

Look Rock reopened in recent years on the Foothills Parkway West, outside the main park roads west of Townsend, with 68 sites, flush toilets, water, a dump station and 10 sites with electric hookups at $36 a night (others $30). Its site mix is the widest in the park, from 12-foot tent spots to a handful rated 40, 41, 42, 45, 46 and 48 feet, and eight pull-throughs. There are no showers. The 2026 season was May 8 to October 25.

The access warning matters: “Avoid GPS directions leading you along Montvale Rd, Happy Valley Rd, or Flats Rd if you are towing a trailer or vehicle.” Approach on the Foothills Parkway from US-321 near Walland or from US-129 at Chilhowee. If you need shore power in the Smokies, this is it; the alternatives are the commercial parks in Townsend, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Cherokee.

Cosby, Deep Creek, Cataloochee, Balsam Mountain

Cosby, in the northeast corner near I-40, is “mostly a tent campground” with 157 sites, a dump station and a short list of RV-only spurs (A01 to 03, A21, A23, A36, B48, B75, B88) mostly rated 25 feet, plus a few RV-with-tent-pad sites. Reservations are required and the office takes no cash. Season May 15 to October 25.

Deep Creek, just north of Bryson City, has 92 sites including 32 RV sites and a dump station, and books out fast in summer because of the creek and tubing. Recreation.gov did not publish a per-site length for Deep Creek when we checked; the facility notice says width, length and slope vary site to site, so read each description. Season May 1 to October 25.

Cataloochee is reached by a narrow mountain road with a three-mile gravel stretch of blind curves, and the park says motorhomes over 29 feet and trailers over 25 feet are “not recommended”. Its 27 sites are rated 20 to 34 feet. Reserve before you drive in; there is no cell service and no way to book on site. Season May 1 to October 25.

Balsam Mountain, at 5,310 feet off the Blue Ridge Parkway, has 43 sites rated 24 feet or less and no lights in the restrooms. The one-way Heintooga Round Bottom Road that continues past it bans vehicles over 25 feet and trailers. Season May 15 to October 12.

Roads: where a rig can and cannot go

The park’s seasonal roads page (updated April 2026) is the official list. The through roads, Newfound Gap Road (US-441), Little River Road and Laurel Creek Road, are open year-round weather permitting and carry no posted RV restriction. Kuwohi Road (formerly Clingmans Dome Road) was open April 1 to November 29 with no size limit listed, though its summit lot is tight. The restrictions are on the one-way secondary roads, where the wording is identical: “Motorhomes, buses, and vans longer than 25 feet, plus passenger vehicles towing trailers are prohibited.” That covers:

• Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail (April 17 to November 29, 2026), the steep one-way loop above Gatlinburg.
• Rich Mountain Road (April 10 to November 9), the one-way exit from Cades Cove toward Townsend.
• Parson Branch Road (May 1 to November 9), eight miles one-way out of Cades Cove, high clearance recommended.
• Balsam Mountain / Heintooga Round Bottom Road (dates to be announced).
• Little Greenbrier Road (April 3 to November 29).

Add the Metcalf Bottoms bridge ban and the Cataloochee advisory above, and the picture is: drive the rig on the main paved roads between campgrounds, and leave it parked for everything else. The Gatlinburg Spur and bypass are ordinary highway. If the Smokies are part of a longer Appalachian loop, Shenandoah Skyline Drive RV camping covers the tunnel height at Marys Rock that catches rigs coming down from the north.

The parking tag, explained for campers

Since 2023 any vehicle parked more than 15 minutes anywhere in the park needs a displayed tag: $5 daily, $15 weekly or $40 annual as of 2026. The park’s fees page and the campground notices agree on the camper exemption: “Front country campers parked at their designated campsite will not be required to have a parking tag. If they park elsewhere in the park, a parking tag will be required.” A tag is also required for any vehicle beyond the two allowed at a site.

In practice an RV couple needs one tag for the tow vehicle or toad for every day they drive to a trailhead or overlook, and none for the rig. Daily and weekly tags bought online can be purchased up to six months ahead and must be printed; in-person tags are same-day or next-day only; machines take cards only and are valid the day of purchase; annual tags come from Smokies Life. Tags are tied to a plate, so buy after you know which vehicle is going. Tags are not required on free-entrance days, which in 2026 were February 16, May 25, June 14, July 3 to 5, August 25, September 17, October 27 and November 11, and a tag never guarantees a space.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Booking “a Cades Cove site” without reading its length. Thirty-nine of them are 24 feet.
2. Arriving at Elkmont with full tanks. No dump station; the nearest is six miles away at Sugarlands.
3. Letting GPS send a trailer over Metcalf Bottoms. The bridge is off-limits to RVs and trailers; use Gatlinburg or Townsend.
4. Taking a 30-foot motorhome into Cataloochee or any trailer onto Roaring Fork. One is “not recommended” on gravel; the other is prohibited.
5. Driving the tow car to Laurel Falls without a tag. The campsite exemption ends at the campground road.
6. Expecting showers. There are none in the park; plan on a tank-fed shower or the commercial campgrounds outside.
7. Running a generator in the wrong loop. Each campground has generator-free loops that change with the season, and rangers enforce them.

For a wider view of which parks fit which rig, see national park RV size limits and, for the short list with power, national park campgrounds with hookups. Dry-camping skills matter more here than almost anywhere; our sister site’s RV solar basics and boondocking for beginners cover stretching a battery through a week at Smokemont with the generator off from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.