If you follow of my work on the Odyssey, you'll know one of my favorite things to do is roast the South. Well, this is a rare occasion on which I will swallow my pride and admit the south has the north beat on something; resort towns.
There are quite a few similarities between The Dells and Gatlinburg, and in many ways they're comparable. Such as:
1. Natural disasters
You likely heard on the news the fires that ravaged Gatlinburg in 2016. But #ONLYTRUEMIDWESTERN2000sKIDSWILLREMEMBER the 2008 flood that hit the dells, eroded a wall, and caused the manmade lake Delton to drain.
2. Ripley's Believe it or Not Museums
You know those books you'd look through as a kid in your school library of people doing weird and/or disgusting things when you were supposed to be reading "The Phantom Tollbooth?" Yeah, they got museums for those now.
To be honest, I've been to the one in Gatlinburg and it's pretty cool. In fact, Gatlinburg seems as if it's owned by Ripley's, they've got a Ripley's aquarium, Ripley's "Odditorium", Ripley's 5D Moving Theater (also went to this, it was pretty cool), Ripley's Mini Golf, and Ripley's Mirror Maze.
3. Tanger Outlet Malls
Tanger Outlet Mall! It's where you go shopping with your mom while your dad naps back at the hotel because they both need a break from all the snot-nosed sticky-fingered kid's activities for a couple hours.
The Dells Tanger outlet has since shut down (RIP) which gives Gatlinburg yet another edge in this comparison.
4. Hunting
My family used to stop by the Wisconsin Dells every year on our way to Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house in Minneapolis. And what's November in Wisconsin? HUNTIN' SEASON! As a way to keep ourselves occupied in the car (in kind of a sick way), we would try to count all the dead deer in the backs of trucks we saw.
In downtown Gatlinburg, you can barely walk for 5 minutes without passing a gun/knife/misc. weapon store. There are also hunting resorts there but those are kind of tucked away from the main part of town.
Where the Dells fails:
Despite the similarities between the two towns, OH BOY are there differences.
GERMS!!!
The Dells focuses much more on indoor entertainment than outdoor, this is in part due to the cooler weather in Wisconsin than Tennessee, and also the fact that there just isn't a huge amount of state or national parks nearby. Because of this, and the excessive number of waterparks, especially indoor waterparks, the Dells is a hotbed for germs.
Back in the day, around 2002 my brother caught rotavirus at Great Wolf Lodge. He then gave it to me once my family got back home. At the time I was quite young, 3 or 4, and I got so severely dehydrated I had to spend a day or two in the hospital.
(Fun fact! The vaccine for this came out literally just 4 years after my hospitalization. Kids these days have it so easy not puking their guts out from a waterpark virus...)
Alas, even though rotavirus is now rare, there are still many, many, many other illnesses that are easily spread in environments like the Dells. It's essentially a giant petri dish.
Where Gatlinburg succeeds:
More options for adults
SEC fraternities often choose Gatlinburg as a location for their formals because it's relatively cheap, close by, and offers a lot of different things to do. (This has resulted in the nickname, "Fratlinburg")
There are lots of great restaurants and bars downtown, including Ole Smokey moonshine distillery which offers moonshine tasting and live music outside!
Nature
Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Mountains? Trees? BEARS?? There so much nature around Gatlinburg you won't know what to do with yourself.
Excessive amount of Pancake Houses
Gatlinburg is FILLED with pancake houses, and I'm not talking Denny's and IHOP, I'm talking about amazing, cute little independent pancake houses that serve up some delicious breakfast. If you stay in Gatlinburg for two weeks you could probably visit a different pancake house every morning. And who doesn't love pancakes?
