Smokemont Campground
The largest campground on the North Carolina side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, open all year.
- Swain County, NC
- Nearest town: Smokemont
- 2,217 ft
Coordinates
- Lat
- 35.55990
- Lng
- -83.31211
Van camping
You can drive in and sleep in your van here.
At a glance
The basics
What to expect
National park
Reservable in season, no hookups, strict quiet hours and food storage.
- County
- Swain County
- State
- North Carolina
- Nearest town
- Smokemont
- Elevation
- 2,217 ft
- Max vehicle length
- Not verified
The place
About Smokemont Campground
Smokemont sits along the Oconaluftee River in a broad valley that was logged and settled long before it was a park, and the flat, open ground the old community left behind is why the campground is as large and as level as it is. The Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Mountain Farm Museum are a few miles down the road, and the meadows there hold the park's most reliable elk viewing at dawn and dusk. Trails leave camp for Chasteen Creek and Bradley Fork, both following water uphill at an easy grade. Because it stays open through winter, it is one of the few places in the high Smokies you can sleep in January.
For van drivers
Getting a van in and out
Access is from Newfound Gap Road, a well-maintained two-lane park road, and the campground has genuinely level ground — unusual in this park and welcome if you sleep across the vehicle. Cherokee is the nearest town for fuel and groceries, a short drive south. Newfound Gap Road itself closes for snow and ice in winter, which can cut the route to Tennessee without affecting access from the Cherokee side. Bear activity is constant here: all food and anything scented belongs inside the van, not in an awning box.
Written for a high-roof van, not a pickup. Surfaces and clearances change with the weather and with the season’s roadwork — the official page below is the last word.
On the ground
Facilities & fees
Not verified means nobody has confirmed it — treat it as unknown, never as a no. 8 of the 8 below are still unconfirmed.
- Restrooms
- Not verified
- Drinking water
- Not verified
- Showers
- Not verified
- Dump station
- Not verified
- Hookups
- Not verified
- Campfires
- Not verified
- Dogs allowed
- Not verified
- Reservations
- Not verified
- Max vehicle length
- Not verified — check with the park
- Season
- Not verified — check with the park
- Fees
- Not verified — check with the park
The last word on all of this is nps.gov(opens in a new tab).
Where it is
Coordinates & directions
Decimal degrees
- Latitude
- 35.559899
- Longitude
- -83.312108
35.5599° N · 83.3121° W
No map tiles here on purpose. Half of these places have no signal at the gate, so coordinates you can save offline beat a map that needs one. Drop them into your phone before you turn off the pavement.
Nearest gas and groceries: Smokemont
Before you go
Official sources
Fees, site counts, length limits and closures change season to season. Everything we have not confirmed ourselves is marked Not verified above rather than guessed at — and where we do have a number, the operator’s own page still wins.
Keep looking
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