From the Gorge Overlook Trail, Fall Creek Falls is already going over the Cumberland Plateau rim. It drops into Cane Creek Gorge, and the Wheeler Farm Trail takes you down through a rock arch toward the floor. You sleep in the main campground's improved loop, back in the trees above the gorge.
Summer on the plateau is hot, and the improved loop is how you stay. Some sites take RVs up to 65 feet. If you need more sleeping space or a longer rig than those pads, look at RV rentals in Tennessee. Piney Falls Trail and Millikan's Overlook Trail remain closed from storm damage as of September 2026.
If the improved loop is booked, Bandy Creek on the Big South Fork is the overflow night. Manchester is the base for Tims Ford and the Bonnaroo farm.
Big South Fork and Bandy Creek
The Big South Fork river gorge is the day, sandstone bluffs and a cut you hike rather than drive. Bandy Creek is the wooded campground on the Tennessee side, loops in the trees above that river.
Trailer sites offer water and electric with no sewer. You reserve on recreation.gov up to 180 days in advance, and the campground stays open year-round.
A Smokies trip starts from Knoxville. North Carolina holds the other side of those mountains.
Johnson City is for Roan Mountain and Watauga Lake. Wilderness Road Campground at Cumberland Gap sits in Virginia off Highway 58, so that night belongs to Virginia.
Savage Gulf and Foster Falls
Savage Gulf is sheer sandstone cliffs and deep gorge trails, all of it on foot. There is no vehicle camping in the park, and even the closest sites, Stone Door and Savage Station, walk in from the parking lot.
Foster Falls at Fiery Gizzard sits at the edge of the same plateau. It is a primitive drive-up loop for tents and small trailers, with no water or electric, and a campervan sleeps at Fall Creek Falls and takes this plateau as a day.
Cummins Falls is a gorge day with a swimming pool at the bottom, and the park has no campground. From Chattanooga, the days are Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee River Gorge. Georgia covers the country south of that river.
Reelfoot Lake
Reelfoot Lake is shallow west Tennessee water with flooded cypress standing in it. The South Campground is the overnight beside that forest, and spring is the season when those pads go first. Memphis is the base for the Mississippi bluffs.
Piney Campground at Land Between the Lakes
Piney Campground sits on the Tennessee arm of Land Between the Lakes, lakefront sites and wooded ones on the same peninsula. It stays open March through November.
The northern Natchez Trace is a Nashville trip. Spring Hill takes the parkway south of Leiper's Fork, and Alabama campervan trips pick up the other side of that line.
The Kentucky side of these lakes belongs to Kentucky.