Balsam Mountain Campground

Small sites packed close together means you’re taking your chances in the neighbor lottery at this campground. However, it provides easy access to a lot of great hiking and unique ecosystems, all of which see way less pressure than the more popular areas in the park. Take the time to drive back down to Cherokee via the one-way Balsam Mountain Road and you’ll likely see some wildlife. if you’re a birder, the trip will go through some prime habitat for hard-to-spot Appalachian species, so bring your binoculars. If you’re a fly fisherman, there’s some rarely fished water down the road where all three Smoky Mountain species can be found.

Very clean, no noise, friendlier campers

Nice place. Clean, Great views. Bring everything you need as it is a significant trip to get to a store. Some minor parking lot issues near site 30 with holes in the pavement.

Small sites packed close together means you’re taking your chances in the neighbor lottery at this campground. However, it provides easy access to a lot of great hiking and unique ecosystems, all of which see way less pressure than the more popular areas in the park. Take the time to drive back down to Cherokee via the one-way Balsam Mountain Road and you’ll likely see some wildlife. if you’re a birder, the trip will go through some prime habitat for hard-to-spot Appalachian species, so bring your binoculars. If you’re a fly fisherman, there’s some rarely fished water down the road where all three Smoky Mountain species can be found.

Very clean, no noise, friendlier campers

Nice place. Clean, Great views. Bring everything you need as it is a significant trip to get to a store. Some minor parking lot issues near site 30 with holes in the pavement.

Beautiful part of the Smokies. Recommend going to "sunset point" which is ~100 yards down the Flat Creek trail from the turnaround at the nearby end of the paved road.

We love this campground. It is in a higher elevation so it is the perfect spot to go to in the heat of the summer!! It was in the 90s at home but we enjoyed perfect 70s during the day and cool 50s overnight. It was wonderful. Being a smaller campground, we enjoyed not having as many campers surrounding us. It was nearly fully booked and we still felt we had some privacy and was never bothered by noise or felt like we had people right on top of us. In short, this is our favorite camping spot and we will be back again and again!!

Gorgeous campground, great views. Was busy so I had to reserve two different sites in balsam on consecutive nights but someone stole my campsite the second night. I ended up waiting until the night time and taking an empty site and the ranger took no issue with it. Definitely would camp here again.

Very nice, clean and picturesque campground. First time visiting and it was great. We are tent campers and the sites were well maintained. A little close to your neighbors but not too bad. Bathroom facilities were very nice. Campground is within easy driving distance for hiking and other outdoor activities. We loved our stay and are looking forward to returning very soon!