Perfectly seated in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, Sevierville is a crisp, peaceful Tennessee city, where country music reigns and historic sites are crisscrossed with nature-made wonders. If you’ve ever been to these mountains, you know that there are loads of woodland places to explore, like caverns, waterfalls, cliffs, and tree-dotted, lush-green valleys.

The same can be said for the surroundings of Sevierville. You could spend an entire weekend hiking and camping in the wilderness, with the stars as your nightlight and the sun as your guide. Or, stick with the inner city, where the bustling downtown district offers family-owned shops, old-fashioned restaurants, and a few historic sites and attractions.

Home to rich Southern histories, old-fashioned country music, and scrumptious, often-fried cuisine, Knoxville is a famed Tennessee city to the north of Pigeon Forge. Locals speak with classic Southern twangs, banjos are a common instrument, and there are historic sites galore. This is Knoxville in a nutshell. Of course, the inner city offers more in terms of a modern arts scene, science and arts museums, a beautiful zoo, and big nightlife with pub and nightclub crawls.

Towards the outskirts of Knoxville, you can find Southern homes that served as rest stops and headquarters for Confederate armies during the Civil War. These homes are historic and open to the public for tours. In other words, history buffs would be big fans of all the culture and historic insights that Knoxville has to offer.