Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Fun fact: a national parks trip can be incredibly cost effective, but can also be mind blowingly expensive. I’ll always tell you that national parks are one of the cheapest vacations you can take, but….I might be a little bit wrong sometimes. There, I said it. With a little research, a national parks visit can be affordable. There are so many different options for lodging, camping, backpacking, staying in or outside of the park boundaries...you can make a national park whatever price point you want it to be. But we’re here to talk budget-friendly national parks, so let’s be real, just how expensive is a national parks trip?!

This is a fluid post that I will continually update! Each time I visit a new park I’ll add it here, or update parks that I return to. It’s kind of a fusion highlight reel and future bucket list.

We’re going to take a quick break from national park trip reports, since we’ve hit a milestone—Congaree National Park, which I talked in detail about two weeks ago, was my tenth national park! I thought it would be fun to do a quick overview of my first ten national park visits in chronological order all in one place. It’s been an interesting journey thus far, and I’m hoping you lovely readers might enjoy an honest recap.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of a place in the mountains, where I could frolic to my heart’s content…but then I did the Canyon Climbers challenge and realized that I could waste away believing these things are fairytales, or be an independent human and actually go do them! (More on that here.) Which brings us to my next adventure: Great Smoky Mountains National Park.