Our Smoky Mountains Motorcycle Trip
Route, Budget and Best Roads

Well, we made it home! Six days, two motorcycles, a whole lot of miles, and the best roads we’ve ever ridden. So far….

After getting home and catching up on a few chores (because apparently the grass doesn’t stop growing while you’re on vacation), we sat down to talk about the trip, what we spent, and what we’d do differently next time.

We started in central Illinois and made our way through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The first couple of days were mostly about getting down there, but we did find some pretty great roads along the way. Dodson Road in Tennessee was one of our favorites, and we hadn’t even heard of it until Kennie spotted it while planning our route.

Of course, the big reason for the trip was to ride the Cherohala Skyway (twice), Tail of the Dragon, Foothills Parkway, and Moonshiner 28. We’d watched plenty of videos about these roads before going, and honestly, some of them made us a little nervous. Especially the Tail of the Dragon with its 318 curves in just 11 miles.

But once we actually got there, it wasn’t nearly as scary as we’d expected. We took our time, rode at speeds we were comfortable with, and pulled over when somebody wanted to go faster. Being there during the week probably helped, too, since we didn’t run into much traffic.

The Cherohala Skyway was another favorite. It’s a much longer road with big sweeping curves and some amazing views. We liked it enough that we rode it twice! Just be ready for the temperature changes. It can get pretty cold up in the mountains, even when it’s warm down below.

We also really enjoyed stopping at historic Tapoco Lodge, checking out Deals Gap and the Tree of Shame, riding through Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and seeing Fontana Dam. There were plenty of other things we could’ve stopped to see, but we only had so much time, and riding the roads was our main goal.

Not everything went perfectly, of course. We got caught in the rain a few times, had trouble with the GPS and phone signals, and Kennie somehow managed to lock his motorcycle keys inside his saddlebag in the middle of nowhere. We also found a road called Joyce Kilmer Road that we definitely wouldn’t go out of our way to ride again. It was narrow, slow, and had grooves in the pavement that made riding Myrtle pretty miserable.

And then there was the hotel in Cherokee. We’d planned to stay at the casino, but when they wanted almost $400 for a room, we decided that wasn’t happening! We ended up finding a nice room in Maggie Valley for around $75 instead. Much better!

So, what did the whole trip cost?

We kept track of most of our expenses along the way, and it turned out to be a pretty affordable trip for two people traveling on separate motorcycles.

We spent about $172 on gas for both bikes over the six days. Food generally ran around $30 to $40 a day, and the hotels we paid for were usually around $75 to $85 a night.

We also got two nights at Bally’s in Evansville through casino rewards, which saved us quite a bit on hotel costs. And we happened to have some good luck gambling on the way home, winning enough to cover what we’d spent on the trip. That was a nice surprise, but definitely not something we’d count on happening again!

For somebody planning a similar trip without free hotel rooms or casino winnings, we’d suggest budgeting around $150 a day for two people on two motorcycles. That worked pretty well for the kind of trip we took, but we also weren’t spending money on a bunch of tourist attractions, expensive restaurants, or other activities.

There were a few things we learned that we’ll keep in mind for our next trip.

First, we’re definitely bringing spare motorcycle keys, and keeping them somewhere other than the bike they belong to!

We’d also like to have a little more time. We covered a lot of miles in six days, and by the end of it, we were pretty worn out. An extra day or two would’ve given us more time to stop and look around instead of always worrying about getting to the next hotel.

And we learned that we don’t need to be so nervous about riding somewhere new. Chris is still a fairly new rider, and neither of us claims to be an expert. But we managed just fine by taking our time and riding at our own pace.

We also realized there’s nothing wrong with putting the bikes on a trailer to get past the boring parts of a trip. We enjoyed riding all the way down and back, but it sure would’ve been nice to have a little more time in the mountains instead of spending so much of the trip just getting there.

Would we do it again? Absolutely!

There are still plenty of roads and places down there that we didn’t get to see. We never made it onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, didn’t stop at the Wheels Through Time museum, and barely scratched the surface of everything there is to do in the Smoky Mountains.

But that’s okay. It just gives us a reason to go back.

This was our first real multi-day motorcycle trip together, and we learned a lot about what works for us and what doesn’t. We made some mistakes, had a few surprises, and came home tired and sore, but we had a great time doing it.

If you’re thinking about taking a trip like this, don’t talk yourself out of it just because you don’t have the perfect motorcycle, a ton of money, or years of riding experience. Plan what you can, know your limits, and give yourself a little room for things to go wrong.

You don’t have to see everything or do everything in one trip.

And like Chris said at the end of our video, don’t talk yourself out of it. Talk yourself into it!

Now we just have to figure out where we’re going next.