Under Lookout Mountain the Tennessee River bends through its gorge, and Point Park's stone wall is where you stand for that long turn of water. The wall is part of Lookout Mountain Battlefield, a National Park Service unit on the mountain, and the main gate opens onto that overlook. Point Park is day-use, a morning or an afternoon on the wall.
Ruby Falls is the cave under that ridge, a walk from a cave mouth to a waterfall in the dark on timed-entry tickets you buy in advance as of September 2026. Rock City is the sandstone garden on top of the plateau, formations and overlooks you pay to walk. They take separate tickets, and both are day-use.
Snoopers Rock, in Prentice Cooper State Forest, is the free overlook onto the same gorge. You drive the forest roads to the rock and stand there without a ticket booth. Trails run through the forest if you want a walk after the view. The forest is open sunrise to sunset, and several interior roads close late December through mid-March for wet-weather rutting, but Snoopers Rock and the Davis Pond campsite stay reachable through that window.
You come off the mountain and sleep on Chickamauga Lake at Harrison Bay State Park, north of Chattanooga on TN-58. The campground has water and electric hookups, a limited number of sites take RVs up to 65 feet, and you reserve through reserve.tnstateparks.com, as of September 2026. Reserve the site first, then the van. Chester Frost Park is the county hookup night on the same lake in Hixson.
Cloudland Canyon is the Georgia day off Lookout's south side near Rising Fawn, a rim over a waterfall that splits on the way down, and it belongs to Georgia. Atlanta is farther south if you keep driving.
The Ocoee
Rafters work a tight Ocoee between boulders, including the slalom course at the Ocoee Whitewater Center, built for the 1996 Olympics. The boats come through that course, and the banks are close enough that you hear them. Local outfitters put in on the river for an upper section past that course and a middle Class III-IV stretch. After the water, you camp at Thunder Rock or Parksville Lake in the Cherokee National Forest.
Thunder Rock Campground turns away RVs, trailers, and pop-ups over 20 feet because the loops are tight, as of September 2026. Parksville Lake Campground is shaded and spaced for large RVs, with electric hookups and no potable water on site. If you need the extra length or sleeping space, look at RV rentals in Chattanooga and use Parksville or Harrison Bay.
Chickamauga Battlefield
You spend a historic day on the Chickamauga field, starting at the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center, a staffed NPS desk on this field. It is the other half of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. The field takes a full day to walk. There is no camping on the grounds.
Fall Creek Falls, the plateau waterfall and gorge north of Chattanooga, belongs to the rest of Tennessee.