Cosby Campground

Great campsite! We stayed at site A4. It was close to the road, but at night it was still a very quiet place. We were there on 7÷31÷15 and there were maybe 5 other sites occupied. It was about 89 degrees, but the shade of the trees helped immensely. The hiking trails were an added bonus. We hiked to the Overlook and back, a great hike. I would definitely return to Cosby! Oh and the bathrooms were very clean. The only thing is you need your own soap and hand towel.

Great campground with tons of trail options. We stayed at site B92 which was on the far end of the campground. Only one neighbor in front of us but everyone on that side was pretty friendly and talked to each after coming back from the trails.
The bathroom near B92 was not the best… tons of moths flying inside of it. However, the bathrooms by the group campsites smelled like flowers! ja! I guess the farther away from the entrance, the more «remote» amenities you get ;)

Beautiful trails and great camp sites! We went over July 4^th and expected it to be crazy busy but wasn’t at all! No showers though.

This was a really nice campground in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We stayed here for five nights starting with the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend. The place was basically full, maybe a couple empty sites but not many. Because of how the sites were oriented all of the tents are pretty close to the road through the campground. With all of the traffic of the first two nights, this was actually pretty annoying. Additionally you’re fairly close to other people and the light pollution from their lanterns (never seen so many lanterns at a campground, seriously).
Nights 3 – 5 were as though we were at a different place. It cleared out and maybe every fifth site was occupied. People were again respectful and obviously with less traffic the noise was less obnoxious. We booked a few months in advance, and there were still lots of sites available at that time.
In general this is a beautiful campground. There are a large number of trails departing from the campground. The one that we did took us to the Appalachian Trail in about 3 miles. It was strenuous, with a very steep incline for those first 3 miles, ended at Mt Cammerer, what a view! Highly recommend, but it is strenuous, so be warned and be prepared. I think lots of the other trails originating from the campground were similarly strenuous.

My wife and I chose the hike to the waterfall which was about a total of 4 miles (there and back). It was our first time hiking in the woods so we went overboard with the packing such as carrying a swiss army knife, plenty of water bottles, food, and first aid kit. There were a couple things we wish we brought that we didn’t such as hiking boots/​shoes and walking sticks. It would’ve been a lot easier hike with hiking shoes! Call us ignorant but we learned our lesson! That’s for sure! You can have the lightest and most athletic gym shoes and it will do you no good!
Anyways, we still had a great time hiking although it was very difficult for us at times (because of the shoes). There are some incline and decline you have to do with a lot of tree roots to walk over. The hike there and back took us about a good 4 hours including some breaks.

An awesome place to camp in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
We chose Cosby for a number reasons, first and foremost, it’s in the mountains. Secondly, after a bit of reading and online research we discovered that Cosby is often less crowded than many other campgrounds in the mountains. For more details about the facilities located at Cosby, how to reserve spaces, what to expect I really suggest checking related websites like
and
because I can now confirm all of their information is accurate.
Only 26 of the 157 campsites can be reserved, meaning the rest are first come first serve. We had no trouble finding a space that was not next to anyone else on a holiday weekend, in the middle of the fall foliage change no less! We weren’t cramped up against other campsites and they were well maintained, each with a level place for your tent, fire ring and picnic table. They only have restrooms (no showers) in the campgrounds, but they do have a sink where you can wash dishes at each restroom. And by the way, they were also some of the cleanest government restrooms I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.
The campground is easy to get to, making it appealing to both day hikers, campers and backpackers. There are quite a few trails that lead to and from the campground, including an easy nature hike along Cosby Creek complete with natural trail pamphlet to help explain what you are looking at (can be picked up at the campground office), one leads up to the Appalachian trail and another one labeled very ‘grueling’ hike up to Hen Wallow Falls.
This really turned out to be one of the better camping experiences I have ever had. I highly recommend doing some research before every camping trip and finding out what you can and cannot bring. You cannot bring in outside firewood because of invasive species issues and you must store all your food in the trunk of your car so the bears don’t come snooping.
I really recommend Cosby if you’re looking for some place faraway but not too faraway.