Wide fields, old farmsteads and deer out in the grass along the loop road fill the open valley of Cades Cove as the sun clears the ridges. The rig is back on a riverfront site in Townsend, a short drive down the road, where the coffee went on before the kids were fully awake. Afternoons drift back to camp for a long dinner outside. The cove keeps for another slow pass the next morning, when the light has changed and the animals have moved.
That back-and-forth suits a motorhome week better than any single campground does. Townsend is on the park's western edge, outside the boundary, with RV parks that run water, power and sewer to the site, so a family gets air conditioning through a July afternoon and nobody worries about the tanks. Cades Cove, Elkmont and the river road between them are all a morning's drive from there, and it's the side of the Smokies people point a rig toward when they leave Knoxville on US-321.
Townsend and the Cades Cove loop
Townsend's RV parks gather just outside the park entrance, and one of them is the base for the week. The Townsend Great Smokies KOA has riverfront sites along with pull-through full-hookup sites at 50/30 amps. Its site page doesn't give a length figure, so tell them your rig's length when you book.
From Townsend the road climbs into the cove, where the 11-mile one-way loop circles the valley floor past the farmsteads. Nobody drives it fast, and a motorhome is one more vehicle in the line easing from pullout to pullout. Go early, when the deer are out in the open, and keep the afternoon for the river back in town.
The park's other front door runs through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. The Gatlinburg side of the Smokies is its own RV trip, and Pigeon Forge's resorts pair with the TVA campgrounds on Douglas Lake for a busier week.
Sleeping in the park at Cades Cove or Elkmont
A night or two inside the park changes the rhythm. You're in the cove before the first cars come up from Townsend, and the evening ends around a fire with the ridges going dark. The catch for a rig is that neither campground has hookups, and each has a length cap.
Cades Cove Campground takes motorhomes up to 40 feet and trailers up to 35 as of October 2026, stays open year-round, and keeps a dump station on site. Elkmont, along Little River Road, caps motorhomes at 35 feet and trailers at 32, closes from late November to early April, and has no dump station of its own, with the nearest at Sugarlands. A motorhome over 35 feet or a trailer over 32 leaves you with Cades Cove alone, which is why the campsite is the first booking and the rig is the second. Two of you on a short trip can size down to a campervan from Knoxville instead.
The week that works runs in turns. Fill the fresh tank and empty the others in Townsend, spend two or three dry nights at Cades Cove, then stop at the campground's dump station on the way out and finish back on full hookups with the air on.
Melton Hill Dam, a lake weekend near Lenoir City
When a full week in the mountains won't fit, Melton Hill is the weekend that does. TVA's campground at the dam is wooded and stepped down the hillside on three levels toward the water, with a boat launch for the family that fishes or paddles. Book the site before the rig, and check TVA's campground page for site lengths and hookups before you pick a class.
North and west of Knoxville, Norris Dam State Park and the deep gorge of the Obed Wild and Scenic River are written up for smaller rigs on the Knoxville campervan page.