Tubing is a popular activity in the NC Smoky Mountains. Our favorite spot for morning walks was right along Deep Creek, just about ten minutes away from our Airbnb. Looking down at the creek, we would watch people floating through the calm areas and laughing through the little waterfalls and rapids. After seeing how much fun everyone was having, we had to try tubing…

We spent more than two weeks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and did a ton of hiking. These are three of the hikes we did during our visit, including our second firetower visit and some early morning hiking after watching the sun rise…

Google maps and Airbnb to scope out where we would want to spend time here in the good ol’ US of A. We wanted to minimize the amount of flying we would have to do but still spend our time in places with cooperative weather and plenty of interesting things to keep us occupied without crowds. I'm not a shopper so whether stores are open, masks are required, or any other hot issue didn't matter. I googled “best hiking towns” and found Bryson City, NC.