Great little campgrounds in the great Smoky Mountains. I stayed for 3 days, would have stayed longer if there were reservations available. The restrooms had flushable toilets and running water but no showers. The campgrounds had sizable pads available for tents, picnic table and a fire ring. First thing you see driving into the campgrounds is the running River to the left. Soaring trees and beautiful Fall foliage everywhere. I hiked the storybook Trail and thoroughly enjoyed it, it was not too challenging and offered a variety of beautiful things to see. I highly recommend Cosby campground! read more

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Private lot surrounded by trees, level tent pad, nice picnic table and fire ring! Quiet and lots of great trails to hike! Bathrooms were very clean! We enjoyed our time there and will be back!!! read more

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Such a great, quiet campsite in the park, but away from the hustle and bustle of Gatlinburg! Lot of hiking trails from the sites with variety of hiking levels; long hikes, waterfall options, nice stream along the campsite entrance. Plenty of other day hikes within an hour of camp! Reserved our site online and ended up extending it a couple nights, we just didn't want to leave a good time! Plenty of bathrooms through out the site, running water and place to clean dishes. Bear proof garbage bins emptied regularity. Campsite was better than we pictured from the photos online. Each site has their own little area with shade and plenty of trees! Camp host was very friendly when making their routine checks! Got the feeling they genuinely cared about the campers and made an effort to get to know us over the week stay. Hope we could stay for more than a week next time! read more

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October 25th-29th. First time visiting , it was beautiful. Only two loops. A&B. We stayed in B loop. Trees were beautiful, it was so quite and peaceful. Only about 10 minutes from nearest outside store , 30 mins from Walmart. The campsite had several walking trails to choose from and running creek. Only three stalls in bathroom. No showers. We did have to go buy a rake! read more

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We went into the wooded area to get some fresh air and enjoy a slightly rugged terrain. It was beautiful and peaceful. No many people up there. Will be back to go deeper when we're better prepared. Bring water and eat before you go hiking. Don't want the wildlife to munch on you. read more

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 nps.gov and recreation.gov 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. read more

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A return to Cosby made 2020 a little better. We love this campground and came here for years while living in TN. This time was a bit different. We did start off with an unhappy beginning however. We pulled up on Sunday and I wasn't sure about the Covid process. There were two younger female park rangers at the registration hut when we arrived. We were excited when asking about the process but were met with inhospitable attitudes. I was shocked at their unprofessional attitudes, lack masks, and inept ability to share any information. I was instructed to get out of the car, walk up onto the platform, (past them at minus six feet) and get a reservation tag. I stood looking for our names. Big bold numbers in red were for the check out date and I struggled a little to see the "fine print" with our name. I asked the ranger to help and she made a caustic remark about my inability to find the tag. Maybe big red site numbers for all to see could be the priority. As I was walking back to the car, this ranger mentioned to bear proof our site. I said we would of course and mentioned that we used to be frequent visitors. She said- Well I am going to come by your site and check to see if you have left any food out. I responded- please do and hang out with us by the fire. Now- if she and the other silent ranger were concerned about our safety- they might have said- hey there has been a lot of bear activity and we want folks to be safe. Actually, anything would have been more helpful than these folks. How about a welcome to the park, asking us about our stay and providing any additional info. Other than this unhelpful bubble bursting entrance, here are the positives: the campsites were spaced out in a way that we felt safe. There have always been bear proof trash receptacles which is reassuring. A couple of restrooms were closed but several were open and fairly clean. Plenty of room to ride bikes, walk, and explore. Nature was on full display and of course that was our real reason for heading to Cosby. So many trails- thick forests, nice campers, and on Monday, one of our longtime favorite male park rangers was on site. All was right with the world again. read more

We stayed at Cosby Campground for 3 night at $17.50/night. Our primitive site#21 is on top of the hill with small creek running down hill right next to our site. The sound of water in the creek will be soothing for your night cap. A hiking trail ends with water falls is just run parallel with the creek and plenty of mosquitoes to keep your hike lively. While all campsites here were primitives but nearby clean and functional bathroom with plenty of water spigots around the campground and dump station (at the exit) make our stay comfortable. WiFi or LTE is none existence. OTA TV signals is zilch. This is as close to primitive camping as it gets, which maybe a big turn off for some folks. read more

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. read more

Great park with lots of trails we hiked hen wallow falls, moderate hike with some rocks and tree vines. The falls is beautiful definitely worth the hike! read more

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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 ;) read more

Excellent camping, firewood as you come in. Located near multiple trail heads with easy car access. Perfect for glamping!

My husband and I camped here in early June. We had site B-6. It was on a hill with woods behind us and had good separation from the campsite on our left but not on the right. The tent pad on all of the sites are large, nice and flat with good crushed gravel. The tables were on a separate pad lower than our tent. They were nice sized as well. No one was in the site to our right, but if they were their picnic table and ours would have been very close, way too close for privacy. This appeared to be typical for most sites. In our loop we would have preferred to camp in sites B-2, or B-5. The premium sites in my opinion were B-90,B-92, or B-93. These were all reservable and were near the creek and fairly private with woods on both sites,which of course is very relaxing. We were able to hear the creek from our site but not very loudly. I saw turkeys one day near the 90+ sites. They may also be the ones that could possibly be visited by bears since they were a little more in the woods. We didn't see any on our trip. It rained almost everyday while we camped which is typical for the Smoky Mountains. We were able to take several hikes which we enjoyed tremendously. One thing to watch out for is poison ivy. It's EVERYWHERE even on the corner of our tent pad. Wished they would try to remove it at the campsites. Bathrooms were always clean and maintained. Of course no showers, which is Smoky National Park camping. On top of Sutton ridge overlook we came across two timber rattle snakes and thanked God that he gave them rattles to let us know they were there. I have been hiking and camping in the Smokies for near 50 years and this is the first time I have ever come across any venomous snakes. read more

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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. read more

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