Not heard of the friends only No-Regrets Road Trips?
Read all about it here. We completed 8 years in a row in 2025.
Why Nantahala and not Smokey?
Simply put – Nantahala is Smokey’s quieter, heavily forested neighbor. If the Great Smoky Mountains are the bustling tourist capital, Nantahala National Forest is its untamed frontier. We put this to a test during our 2025 No-Regrets Road Trip and came out as Nantahala life-long fans!
How to Plan your visit?
• For accommodation, choose one of the many exquisite vacation rentals. Ours was nestled at the top of a mountain and looked, felt majestic and plum.
• Choose your activities and places to visit. We did the following in a 4-day trip: Dry Falls, hiking at Wesser Bald Fire Tower, Zip-lining at Nantahala Outdoor Center (including a 40-mile an hour mega zip line!), Deep Creek Waterfalls Loop at Smokey, the highly acclaimed Whiteside Mountain Trail, Tail of the Dragon (bikers paradise), Fontana Lake Overlook
• Other notable mentions: Chimney Rock State Park (closed due to Hurricane Helene), Silver Run Falls, Sunset Rock trail, and many picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains Overlooks like Waterrock Knob.
• As always, run through this indispensable emergency checklist and 7 tech essentials to turbo-charge your road trips.
Road Trip From Chicago
Chicago to Nantahala National Forest is about 600 miles and takes around 11 hours. You go via Smokey National Park so it would be best
We did an all-nighter, starting at 10 PM from Chicago.
Photolog
The Cottage
The cottage was a bumper hit, brimming with natural beauty on the outside and very well equipped inside – including expansive game room, hot tub, porch and what not.
Dry Falls
This is a must-visit, for all ages. Not everyday you get to walk behind a waterfall and admire the gushing waters.
Bridal Veil Falls
Nantahala area is famous for yet another very unique waterfall which you can actually drive behind. The water was scant and the road was closed due to safety issues though.
Whiteside Mountain Trail
Deep Creek Waterfalls At Smokey
We did the acclaimed Deep Creek Waterfalls Loop —about 2.4 miles round trip leading to three waterfalls: Juney Whank Falls, Indian Creek Falls, and Tom Branch Falls
Fontana Lake
We saw Fontana Lake on the way back, couldn’t venture in but the drone views were terrific.
Wesser Bald Fire Tower Hike
The road to Wesser Fire Tower was extremely bumpy towards last few miles. And the trail markings were non-existent, if not for the AllTrails offline tracking, we would have struggled.
That’s it, the 2025 edition of No-Regrets friends road trip ended in a jiffy just like this sunset seen on the way back.
Type in the comments if this inspired you to take a road trip with your besties!
Leave a Reply