A Local’s Travel Guide To Knoxville And East Tennessee Culture With Places To Visit

By Kevin Wilkerson, Knoxville Native

Whoever said you can’t go home again was not from Knoxville, TN. Because I go back home every year for Christmas and yes, while people’s lives change, the area pretty much stays the same. Certainly the way they live remains as it was when I was a child and teenager there.

So this is a guide to the culture and lifestyle of Knoxville and East Tennesseeans, along with some recommendations of cool things to do and places to visit in the area.

While I grew up in west Knoxville (Cumberland Estates if you really want to know) and went to West High School where Kenny Chesney’s dad once was a teacher, my family now lives to the south in Loudon, about a 45-minute drive to downtown Knoxville. This is a rural area and my sister and husband are even more in the countryside, in Greenback. To get there from Loudon, you drive through a dot of a community called Vonore (pronounced Von-NOOR).

It’s the kind of place where girls own big pickup trucks. Where you drive along long highways that are totally dark at night (I mean would it kill them to put up a few street lights!?) often along a lake. Where people will stike up a friendly conversation with you even when you are doing something as simple as paying for gas. I talked at length with a fellow who sat down with my brother-in-law and myself while we were having lunch at a country cafe (the Lamp Post in Madisonville, highly recommended) and we had a very nice conversation, despite me having absolutely nothing in common with him. He likes small towns and hunting and I like cities (I live in San Diego) and the only hunting I do is for compliments. Yet we got along as if we had known each other for years.

On those long highways, you will pass a school every few miles and a church every other minute. Family values are very obvious here. If you get lost, just look for a Dollar General store. The side of the building with moss growing on it is north.

The drive will be broken up by the sudden appearance of small strip malls and fast food franchises. It’s enough to startle you. One minute you are zipping along through rolling hills of farmland or crossing over a bridge admiring the views of Tellico Lake and the next you’re slammed to a stop as cars turn into parking lots headed to Walmart, Home Depot, Weigles (a gas station and convenience store; these are nearly as prevalent as Dollar General stores) Kentucky Fried Chicken, Bojangles or other quick-service operations or a local business such as a doctor’s office.

So even in the middle of the country, there is mass civilization. People, it seems, are everywhere. And so are their vehicles. Knoxville, by the way, is a city with lots of people and vehicles, tho it doesn’t take long to find yourself on one of those highways. Knoxville is also spread out over a very big area, some 100 square miles so – much like in Los Angeles where I lived for many years – people tend to stay in thier own neighborhoods.

My Recommendations Of Places To Visit In The Knoxville Area

In Knoxville, a must-do place to visit is the University of Tennessee. Better yet if you are there in the fall for a UT football game. Downtown has what it calls Old City which is a compact area with restaurant/bars and a new minior league baseball stadium. It is walkable to the World’s Fair Site; Knoxville was the host city for the 1982 World’s Fair. Along the Tennessee River you can walk or run along a nice path and then grab a beer and some ribs at Calhoun’s on the River. This is where the Volunteer Navy docks for UT football games.

Yet Knoxville’s greatest virtue is the Great Smoky Mountains. The tourists go to Gatlinburg – that is, if they can make it out of Pigeon Forge with all its dinner shows, attractions like the Crime Museum, Titanic Museum and Dollywood – tho I prefer Townsend and Cade’s Cove.

Townsend is not really a town, but a series of distractions along Highway 321. I fondly remember going up there as a teenager for youth church trips, staying at a cabin while spending the days tubing down the stream called Little River and carelessly running across its two swinging bridges causing the girls in our group to scream at us (something that no doubt prepared us for later in life). Today, there is also a walking/running/bicycling path that runs along Little River that is very popular among locals in the area. My sister and her husband vouched for Tuckaleechee Caverns, which for years I assumed was a disappointing tourist trap but apparently is amazing and well worth seeing.

My favorite place is Cade’s Cove. There is a picnic area where we used to go with all of our out-of-town guests (picnic tables are by a stream) and there is an 11-mile scenic loop you can drive or, better yet, ride a bike around. My sister got married at an old one-room church there. Note that it can take more than an hour on nice days to get around the loop as a line of cars moves very slowly and drivers often stop if they think they see a bear. It’s more likely a deer or a group of wild turkeys. Pro’s Tip: If you do see a bear, DO NOT APPROACH. They are wild animals which can rip your arms and limbs to shreads and wipe that smile off your face before you’ve had a chance to get your selfie.

Smoky Mountains Parking Fee: There is now a modest $5 all-day parking fee. Officials wisely chose this over charging an admission fee to enter the park.

Where Not To Eat In Townsend, TN

I cannot recommend where to eat if you are in Townsend, but I can offer a couple of recommendations of where not to eat. They are Apple Valley Cafe and Peaceful Side Social. Yet both are very popular. I can’t explain this except that people are either used to the perceived convenience these places offer or are simply more consumed with getting fed than they are of having a good sit-down meal.

The Apple Valley Cafe is part of a small complex called Apple Valley Mountain Village. The centerpiece is an old-fashioned looking country store, complete with rocking chairs on a porch. The cafe is kind of shaped like a barn, giving you the impression you are about to have a real mountain dining experience. Its big attraction is its “condiments cow,” where you milk the utters of a plastic cow to get your ketchup and mustard.

Yet all this is just a cruel tease, for Apple Valley Cafe is just a glorified fast food restaurant where you wait in an achingly slow line to order in a hurry at a counter, seat yourself and wait for a local high schooler to deliver your food on a plastic container. My chicken salad sandwich was decent enough but next us were pools of water (well, I’m hoping it was only water) on the floor by tables, which led me to question the cleanliness of the place let alone the management, and nether were ever mopped up by the staff.

Peaceful Side Social is clean but bland. The menu is bland and so is the food. This is most definitely not a mountain culinary experience.

Fortunately, there are dozens of other choices in Townsend tho I can’t vouch for any of them at this time. I do suggest, tho, if you see people standing in a line looking up at a menu on a TV screen to make a U-turn and find another place.

Conclusion

Knoxville is a fine place with fine people and you will really enjoy a visit to the area. I recommend checking in with the fine volks at Visit Knoxville to help plan a trip.

This story was written by a native of Knoxville, TN. No AI or ChatGTP was used and it was written by a human.