Maryville & the Foothills Parkway — The Smokies From the Outside In

This unhurried day trip takes in the best of the Smoky Mountain foothills without ever setting foot inside the crowded national park. The Foothills Parkway, a long-promised scenic highway whose final "missing link" section was completed in 2018 after more than half a century of construction, runs along a ridge crest with sweeping overlooks that frame the full wall of the Smokies from the outside — often a clearer and far quieter view than anything within the park itself. Between the overlooks sits Maryville, a genial college town and one of East Tennessee's oldest settlements, home to the Sam Houston Schoolhouse where the future president of Texas taught at eighteen, and a leafy walkable downtown built around Maryville College's founding in 1819. The pace is easy: a morning of overlooks, a relaxed Foothills lunch, an afternoon of small-town history, and home before dark.