We chose the Imagination Mountain Campground when visiting The Smokies from listening to campground reviews. The reviews were based on when it used to be The Great Smoky Jellystone but nevertheless it is run by the same family and, by our opinion, has not suffered a bit from the changeover. We thought the campground was just terrific. It’s a small campground as most of them are in the area, but that only added to it’s charm.
Imagination Mountain is a little over a half hour drive to the Gatlinburg area and is in Cosby, Tennessee. A great staging area for exploring Smoky Mountains National Park.
There is a stream that encircles the campground and most of the sites back up to that stream. Our kids spent countless hours playing in the frigid mountain water. The pool was in fact closed as we went prior to Memorial Day, but the kids didn’t seem to miss it a bit.
There’s a great little store with an ice cream parlor built into it and a great little arcade above which we played in one morning  on a rainy day. They had these great foam blocks up there which we built a fort from as well as billiards, air hockey and even a great little kids library complete with rocking chair.
Linda said they had the nicest and cleanest campground bathrooms she’s ever seen and I believe she liked the laundry facility as well. They also had outside corn hole games, free miniature golf and a large chess set behind the main building next to the pavilion.
We had mass in the pavilion as we were there over Easter Break. We talked about family and camping and God. David Landry, one of the owners performed the mass and played a Christian rock tune followed by a brief prayer for safety of travelers. Probably  the shortest mass we’ve been to but the message was still there: family.  You can see our deacon on the video at the bottom of the page. He, as well as all the staff, were very courteous and put the children first.
The mass was followed by an Easter Egg Hunt in the well appointed playground. Our kids spent many hours in that playground pretending to be pirates and swinging on the tire swing.
If there’s one thing that the campground is lacking, it’s paved roads. We brought all our bicycles but didn’t use them as the large gravel roads weren’t friendly to bikes, especially ones with training wheels. That’s the only thing that we would improve, however there were so many other things to do.
Imagination Mountain Camping Resort adjoins Smoky Mountains National Park and there are even a couple of trails that can be directly accessed from the property. If we come back to the Gatlinburg area I can’t see us staying anywhere else.
Stay tuned as we take you to Cherokee, NC next. Thanks for stopping by.
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