I completely agree with this! We drive from FL and do Gatlinburg as a budget vacation often. Each time we go we choose 1-2 paid attractions and maybe 1 mountain coaster and/or night of mini golf (often found on Groupon or a similar site). The rest of the time we spend hiking and exploring. My daughter has loved hiking through forests and playing in the creeks at every age. We often do 1 day in Cherokee and do some hiking there and visit the old farm to see the elk (free). Sometimes we’ll go to Bryson City and walk around there. We seek out parks with playgrounds. We eat breakfast in the cabin and pack a picnic lunch. Roaring Forks is fun to drive through and there is a day Cades Cove is only open to bikes. Both of those are free. There are also some hotels with water parks that aren’t extremely expensive and often pop up on sites like Groupon. For us it’s a super budget trip.
