National Park gateway towns

[SIGSEGV]

Jackson WY is a great town, one of my wife's college roommates is from there. They have surprisingly good food and of course it's both gorgeous and crazy expensive.


Some other towns that could be considered gateways:

Ely, NV (gateway to Great Basin National Park? well, Baker is closer but Baker is so small). Decent town with some history and a giant copper pit.

Beatty, NV (Death Valley): well, they have a kitschy gas station at least?

West Glacier, MT (Glacier National Park). Has a nice train station!

Cortez, CO (Mesa Verde): it has like two interesting blocks.

[Atlas]

Amazing image of Jackson, WY:

Another gateway town that I liked was Port Angeles, WA (Olympic). Nice little walkable downtown with beautiful views of the mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The gateway town for the coastal parts of Olympic is Forks, WA (of Twilight fame), which I found to be sad and deteriorating.

One gateway "town" that I do not like is Bryce, UT (Bryce Canyon). It's basically two hotels, a barn used for events, and a little kitsch strip mall that sells trinkets and ice cream.

Ashford, WA (Mount Rainier) is tiny and there's not much to it but it's more authentic than Bryce.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Another gateway town that I liked was Port Angeles, WA (Olympic). Nice little walkable downtown with beautiful views of the mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The gateway town for the coastal parts of Olympic is Forks, WA (of Twilight fame), which I found to be sad and deteriorating.

Agreed on both counts. I have stayed in Port Angeles, which is a decent place to spend a short stay when visiting Hurricane Ridge, etc. during the daytime (although it's pretty depressing outside downtown). It's also easy to take a ferry over to Victoria from Port Angeles. I've only had dinner in Forks, and couldn't get out of there fast enough. It is truly depressing.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Interesting; I don't even remember those towns.

When I was thinking of "gateway town" to the Grand Canyon, I thought of Williams, AZ; my partner and I stayed there on our last trip to the Grand Canyon back in 2005. It looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2504...2!8i6656?hl=en

Nice little town, or so we thought---NOTHING to do at night. Hehe on our first trip there, we were so bored out of our minds in Williams that night that we ended up saying "fuck it, let's drive to Phoenix and see what kind of gay bars they have." So we drove the 2.5 hours down to Phoenix and went to this total country-western gay bar where most of the cars in the gravel parking lot were pickup trucks and a lot of guys inside were wearing cowboy hats. It was hilarious. It looked like the roadside bar/rape scene from "Thelma & Louise." I was really tempted to order "a Wild Turkey straight up and a Coke-back, please." We only stayed about an hour; the music was bad and it smelled of cigarette smoke. So we left and then ate at a Waffle House! Our first and only time!

I've been to and stayed in Williams before (and in Flagstaff). It's definitely an alternate home base. It's not the community right by the entrance, which you can find with Tusayan and other places for other parks (like Gatlinburg or Estes Park). Williams is definitely cheaper, but you sacrifice an hour of driving. The drive is actually nice, but you don't want an hour of driving if you want to catch the sunrise or have a full day of hiking or something. So people pay more for the convenience of staying in Tusayan.

Williams is pretty sleepy at night. I went to a craft beer bar and it was dying out at around 10:00. The neon is cool to see, though. Flagstaff is better. Of course, I was in both towns on weeknights, so I would assume both are better on Friday and Saturday nights.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

My mom and her siblings went to Gatlinburg once in the 60s or 70s and it was such a miserable experience for her that she vowed that my brother and I would never have to experience it. We moved to Arizona when I was 13 without ever having to visit (although we did go to Mammoth Cave a lot). Living in suburban Cincinnati, I knew very few kids at school who didn't visit Gatlinburg at least once, and pretty much all of them hated it and said it was boring.

Haha well, to each their own, but although it is pretty kitschy and cheesy, I'd suggest that anyone who found it "boring" is probably just a boring person themselves. There is so much to do there and in the surrounding area it's ridiculous. The one thing it's really lacking in terms of entertainment value is a bar scene, although it is slowly improving. There are only a handful of bars, and they all close at about 1AM, but I mean it sells itself as a family destination, and there couldn't be more than 3,000 or so people who actually live there year round, so that is pretty understandable I think.

[Nomad9]

Gatlinburg is pure cheese but it does it as well as any other cheesy town. I could definitely see myself going there one day with my kids to do the touristy/fun stuff and also getting in some great Smokies camping/hiking.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

Gatlinburg is pure cheese but it does it as well as any other cheesy town. I could definitely see myself going there one day with my kids to do the touristy/fun stuff and also getting in some great Smokies camping/hiking.

Tourist towns are whores, basically. As with whores, you pay a tourist town for a good time and depending on what exactly you do there, a persistent, yet treatable, bacterial or fungal infection. The best tourist town are ones like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Cherokee, Myrtle Beach, or Las Vegas, which understand this and flaunt it, and don't try to be anything else. The annoying tourist towns are the ones, like Asheville, that try to pretend it isn't true and act like they're better than this basic, irrefutable dynamic. There's nothing more pitiful than a whore putting on airs.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

The annoying tourist towns are the ones, like Asheville, that try to pretend it isn't true and act like they're better than this basic, irrefutable dynamic. There's nothing more pitiful than a whore putting on airs.

Oh Jesus, you also just described Flagstaff to a T. We also have a large state university that takes in kids from Phoenix too stupid to get into ASU or UofA (I'm one of them) as well as Californian kids who can't get into the UC's or Cal State's. Because what Arizona needs is more Californians...

Also, until now I forgot there was a difference between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.

[xzmattzx]

Are there any major national parks without any gateway towns or with insignificant gateways? Or national parks that are "decentralized" and have so many access points that there's no one or two significant commercial areas to serve the park?

For instance, Cape Cod National Seashore, while not as major as places like Acadia or the Great Smokey Mountains or Yosemite, has so many different access points up and down the Outer Cape. This, and because Cape Cod itself is a tourist location, means that there's no real gateway to the park. Eastham is where the headquarters and most trails are, so that is the town likely most connected with the park, but the other towns from Provincetown to Chatham have access points equally visited, so Eastham isn't really much like any other town.

[edale]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Tourist towns are whores, basically. As with whores, you pay a tourist town for a good time and depending on what exactly you do there, a persistent, yet treatable, bacterial or fungal infection. The best tourist town are ones like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Cherokee, Myrtle Beach, or Las Vegas, which understand this and flaunt it, and don't try to be anything else. The annoying tourist towns are the ones, like Asheville, that try to pretend it isn't true and act like they're better than this basic, irrefutable dynamic. There's nothing more pitiful than a whore putting on airs.

There's a high hillbilly factor in Gatlinburg and Myrtle Beach that make those areas totally unappealing to a lot of people. Gatlinburg has an incredibly scenic location in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, but it's overrun with airbrush t-shirt shops, confederate/hillbilly memorabilia shops, etc. that I don't think I'd ever willingly go back. I'd 100% rent a cabin in the mountains for a weekend of hiking or something, but would certainly avoid the town as much as possible. Myrtle Beach is Gatlinburg on the coast, at least as I remember it. I went there once and had no desire to ever return. Much better beaches and beach towns further south (Kiawah, Hilton Head) and north (NC's Outer Banks).

[JManc]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Are there any major national parks without any gateway towns or with insignificant gateways? Or national parks that are "decentralized" and have so many access points that there's no one or two significant commercial areas to serve the park?

For instance, Cape Cod National Seashore, while not as major as places like Acadia or the Great Smokey Mountains or Yosemite, has so many different access points up and down the Outer Cape. This, and because Cape Cod itself is a tourist location, means that there's no real gateway to the park. Eastham is where the headquarters and most trails are, so that is the town likely most connected with the park, but the other towns from Provincetown to Chatham have access points equally visited, so Eastham isn't really much like any other town.

I tend to associate Truro with Cape Cod and of course Provincetown but it's along US-6 and accesible for quite a long stretch past Eastham.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Are there any major national parks without any gateway towns or with insignificant gateways? Or national parks that are "decentralized" and have so many access points that there's no one or two significant commercial areas to serve the park?

Maybe the Grand Canyon's North Rim? There's Jacob Lake where AZ 89A meets AZ 67, but aside from a gas station, restaurant and a couple of rental cabins, there's not much there. The closest towns are Fredonia and Page.

Originally Posted by edale

There's a high hillbilly factor in Gatlinburg and Myrtle Beach that make those areas totally unappealing to a lot of people. Gatlinburg has an incredibly scenic location in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, but it's overrun with airbrush t-shirt shops, confederate/hillbilly memorabilia shops, etc. that I don't think I'd ever willingly go back. I'd 100% rent a cabin in the mountains for a weekend of hiking or something, but would certainly avoid the town as much as possible. Myrtle Beach is Gatlinburg on the coast, at least as I remember it. I went there once and had no desire to ever return. Much better beaches and beach towns further south (Kiawah, Hilton Head) and north (NC's Outer Banks).

Went to Myrtle Beach once in 2012. Coming from Arizona (the rest of the extended family drove from Cincinnati), the humidity was unbearable and the town was pretty trashy. Other than spending time with family (my grandfather died two years later), one of the few highlights was visiting Charleston.

[edale]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Are there any major national parks without any gateway towns or with insignificant gateways?

I can't think of any Gateway towns near Yosemite. I drove in last year from San Francisco, and there was nothing that I'd really call a town anywhere close along the route. Maybe you could count Mammoth Lakes as a gateway town for the park, but I think of it much more as a ski town.

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Are there any major national parks without any gateway towns or with insignificant gateways? Or national parks that are "decentralized" and have so many access points that there's no one or two significant commercial areas to serve the park?

For instance, Cape Cod National Seashore, while not as major as places like Acadia or the Great Smokey Mountains or Yosemite, has so many different access points up and down the Outer Cape. This, and because Cape Cod itself is a tourist location, means that there's no real gateway to the park. Eastham is where the headquarters and most trails are, so that is the town likely most connected with the park, but the other towns from Provincetown to Chatham have access points equally visited, so Eastham isn't really much like any other town.

Don't know if you would call it "major," but Saguaro NP in Arizona doesn't really have a "gateway town." But that's I assume mostly because it's right next to Tucson which serves as the de facto home base for people visiting the park.

I don't really consider Holbrook, AZ a "gateway town" to Petrified Forest NP, in that I don't get the sense that Holbrook's economy is built around facilitating tourists, and Holbrook is about 30 miles away. If Holbrook isn't it then Petrified Forest doesn't really have a gateway town. But that also may just be because Petrified Forest is not the most popular national park. Holbrook is the nearest community though, and to the extent it's the gateway town, you could do worse. It has a few rundown but kind of cool old commercial buildings, is relatively compact, has some wild west history, and a has the claim to fame of being the birthplace of NBA coach Mike Budenholzer. On the flip side, it probably says something that today it's probably most known as the place where you can sleep in one of 28 shitty concrete teepees.

[dchan]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

Haha well, to each their own, but although it is pretty kitschy and cheesy, I'd suggest that anyone who found it "boring" is probably just a boring person themselves. There is so much to do there and in the surrounding area it's ridiculous. The one thing it's really lacking in terms of entertainment value is a bar scene, although it is slowly improving. There are only a handful of bars, and they all close at about 1AM, but I mean it sells itself as a family destination, and there couldn't be more than 3,000 or so people who actually live there year round, so that is pretty understandable I think.

I was also only in Gatlinburg for grand total of 2 hours in the late 90's as a 12 year old, but I loved it. I knew it was a tourist trap back then, but that sort of stuff appealed to kids. Also, we only played miniature golf along a cool elevated section slightly above the town, so the mystique of the town sort of lies in what else I didn't do back then. So many Ripley's, Earthquake rides, and other kitsch.

Nowadays, I'd imagine I would be less cool with the town slowly siphoning money out of my wallet.

Nearby Pigeon Forge was also a tourist trap, but I recall it was situated along a wide roadway. Gatlinburg definitely felt more intimate.

BTW, here is a cool excerpt from a book about the original National Park gateway town - Hot Springs, AK:

https://www.theringer.com/2020/6/29/...rkansas-casino

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by edale

I can't think of any Gateway towns near Yosemite. I drove in last year from San Francisco, and there was nothing that I'd really call a town anywhere close along the route. Maybe you could count Mammoth Lakes as a gateway town for the park, but I think of it much more as a ski town.

I would consider Groveland, Mariposa and Oakhurst to be "gateway" towns for Yosemite on the west side, with Oakhurst being the largest at ~12k permanent residents.

[KB0679]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Columbia, SC: "Gateway to Congaree National Park!"

(...which you've never heard of!)

And it's an International Biosphere Reserve that's directly connected to Columbia by means of the Congaree River Blue Trail.

Columbia doesn't do enough to build upon and promote its natural assets.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by dchan

I was also only in Gatlinburg for grand total of 2 hours in the late 90's as a 12 year old, but I loved it. I knew it was a tourist trap back then, but that sort of stuff appealed to kids. Also, we only played miniature golf along a cool elevated section slightly above the town, so the mystique of the town sort of lies in what else I didn't do back then. So many Ripley's, Earthquake rides, and other kitsch.

Nowadays, I'd imagine I would be less cool with the town slowly siphoning money out of my wallet.

Nearby Pigeon Forge was also a tourist trap, but I recall it was situated along a wide roadway. Gatlinburg definitely felt more intimate.

Yeah, Pigeon Forge is basically like if Six Flags had sex with Wayne Newton and Blake Shelton and their love child threw up all over the countryside. Gatlinburg certainly has a cheese factor to it, but it's an actual town, with an actual unique sense of place, and is pretty compact and walkable to boot... not to mention it is WAY closer to all of the amazing hiking trails and waterfalls found in the park itself. Also it has The Pancake Pantry, which puts all other pancakes to shame.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by edale

I can't think of any Gateway towns near Yosemite. I drove in last year from San Francisco, and there was nothing that I'd really call a town anywhere close along the route. Maybe you could count Mammoth Lakes as a gateway town for the park, but I think of it much more as a ski town.

Lee Vining is a gateway town of sorts from the east. From the west, it depends on which road you go on.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

My mom and her siblings went to Gatlinburg once in the 60s or 70s and it was such a miserable experience for her that she vowed that my brother and I would never have to experience it. We moved to Arizona when I was 13 without ever having to visit (although we did go to Mammoth Cave a lot). Living in suburban Cincinnati, I knew very few kids at school who didn't visit Gatlinburg at least once, and pretty much all of them hated it and said it was boring.

If you don't stay in town, rent a chalet, and really only venture to town for meals it can actually be enjoyable during winter. My brother and I were born in Knoxville and after we moved to North Alabama my parents, my brother, and I would visit Gatlinburg almost every December or January. I'm more of a mountain person, so cold nights in hot tubs and waking up to a view of snow covered Mt. Le Conte was always really nice.