Rhododendrons fill the gardens on Roan Mountain around mid-June under open balds, and from Carvers Gap you step onto the Appalachian Trail with the long view into North Carolina. The overnight is cove forest along the Doe River at Roan Mountain State Park's campground. You leave camp on TN-143, spend the middle of the day in the gardens and on the balds, and come back down to the river. The gardens stay interesting after bloom, so the same campground still works well past June.
The Appalachian Trail is not inside the state park, and a map pin on the campground will not drop you at the trail. The gardens and Carvers Gap are in the Cherokee National Forest's Roan Highlands, about eight miles from camp at the gap, which is open year-round with limited parking and snow or ice from fall through spring. US-19E, TN-143, and NC-261 run through the park to get you there. Bear Wallow Trail and Birchfield Trail stay closed after the storms.
RV sites have water and electric hookups, a dump station at check-in, and no sewer in the campground. The upper campground is closed while a storm-damaged bridge is rebuilt, and a Forest Service fire restriction bans campfires, stove fires, and fireworks along the Appalachian Trail on Roan Mountain, as of September 2026.
Watauga Lake and Cardens Bluff
Sleep on the bluff at Cardens Bluff Campground in the Cherokee National Forest. Spend the day on Watauga Lake swimming, boating, and fishing from the shore next door. It is primarily tent camping with no electrical hookups, and the bathhouse covers showers and flush toilets. Bear-proof food storage is required forest-wide, and the campground reopened in early September 2026.
Bristol Motor Speedway race weekends
On spring and fall NASCAR Cup weekends, camping at Bristol Motor Speedway is the trip. The van stays on the property, and the overnight is the event. On-property camping ranges from full-hookup pads to tent sites, with generators allowed only in the non-hookup sections, and a waitlist and a renewals program for the track's own sites. Lock the pad before you rent the van, because a tent site is a different overnight from a hookup site.
Off the property, Earhart Campground next to the north entrance still has dry sites without a reservation, while hookup sites there, at Hick's White Top, and at Pole Position Campground need a booking. Race weekends also fill the public campgrounds, Warriors' Path included, so a Roan or Watauga weekend on the same dates needs the same early booking.
Warriors' Path State Park
Warriors' Path State Park in Kingsport puts the first night on Patrick Henry Reservoir on the Holston River. Main Campground has water and electric hookups. Moody Bluff adds sewer and pull-throughs for a longer rig, which is when RV rentals in Johnson City fit better than a campervan. If you are already pointed at the balds, sleep at Roan Mountain State Park instead.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee side is a Knoxville trip. Keep southeast on this corridor and the next stop is Asheville. Head northeast on the same corridor and the next stop is Roanoke. Jonesborough, Elizabethton, and Erwin are towns on the same roads, without a camping overnight of their own.