Pebble Mountain Family Campground

The area around Pebble Mountain was home to two famed American men: Andrew Johnson (the 17th president) and the frontiersman (and noted hat wearer) Davy Crockett. Start your getaway by learning more about them at historic sites within 20 minutes’ drive of base, then keep one foot in the past by pumping the gas to the City Garage Car Museum in nearby Greeneville. For a touch more grandeur, jaunts to Kingsport’s Allandale House (nicknamed the White House of Kingsport) and the spectacularly stunning Biltmore Estate (America’s largest home) in Asheville, North Carolina, come highly recommended. Grownups may be happy to learn that this part of Tennessee is home to a whole host of breweries, distilleries and vineyards – head to Tennessee Hills Distillery and Depot Street Brewing for tastings within half an hour of the site, or have stops further afield in Johnson City, Kingsport, Asheville and Knoxville, all less than an hour and a half away. You won’t have to go that far for stuff the kids will be into either: within 40 minutes, meet the exotic animals at Brights Zoo, have a splashingly good time on the slides at Wetlands Water Park, or have family afternoons at Fender’s Farm and Corn Maze or Myers Pumpkin Patch.