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Start at 1. John Oliver Cabin

Start while parked. Narration waits until you arrive at each stop.

Free audio tour9 stories

Cades Cove Loop Road, Tennessee

The 11-mile one-way loop around Cades Cove, in the order the road takes you: the first settlers' cabin, three churches, a farm up a half-mile path, Cable Mill, the postmaster's house, the Tipton place and Carter Shields cabin. Extra stories fill the slow stretches.

27 min of audio · 8 miles · Read the transcript

Your route

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Tap a stop to hear its story. Reference route · your car or maps app chooses the roads. Outline markers are optional stories.

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    Getting started

    1. Start in the right placeThis tour begins at John Oliver Cabin. Start while parked; the first story plays when you arrive.
    2. Let's hear itSelect this phone as the car's Bluetooth audio source and set a comfortable volume. Download the tour while you still have signal.
    3. Stories meet you thereYour phone's location starts each story automatically. Music flows straight into the narration. Keep this page open; it keeps the screen awake for GPS.
    4. You're ready to exploreDownload the tour before you leave Townsend: there is no cell service in Cades Cove. Press Start where the one-way loop road begins; the self-guiding booklet is available at the entrance. The loop is open sunrise to sunset and closed to cars on Wednesdays from early May to the end of September. Parking anywhere in the park for more than 15 minutes needs a parking tag ($5 a day), sold online, at the Cades Cove Visitor Center and from machines such as the one at the Cades Cove Orientation Shelter.

    Drive it in a Tesla

    Connect your Tesla account, then approve Plantrip in the Tesla app. Start sends the whole tour to the car's navigation while you're parked; narration plays from this phone through the car.

    Restart from the beginning

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    Facts from Great Smoky Mountains National Park (NPS) pages on Cades Cove and its historic sites, park history and wildlife, and the Tennessee Encyclopedia (Tennessee Historical Society) entry on Cades Cove by Durwood Dunn. Music: Amazing Grace, United States Air Force Band Strolling Strings (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). Narration is AI-generated. Not an official National Park Service product.