Cherokee

Cherokee needs 1 day: visiting the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, with a collection spanning over 12,000 years of Eastern Cherokee Nation history, and touring the southern entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, just minutes from town, the same afternoon. April-June and September-October bring the mildest weather for hiking. It's inexpensive. It's the seat of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, one of the few communities of this Native nation that avoided the forced Trail of Tears removal in the 1830s by hiding in these mountains, and today keeps its language and traditions alive on sovereign land within North Carolina.