A letter from a local
The Urban Wilderness is exactly what it sounds like.
Knoxville built a 1,000-acre trail network — the Urban Wilderness — inside the city limits, ten minutes from downtown. Fifty-plus miles of singletrack, quarry swimming, crag walls, all connected to the neighborhoods by greenway. It's the best civic outdoor project in the South and it's basically my backyard.
The bigger stuff rings the city at about forty-five minutes: the Smokies' half-million acres to the south, the Obed's sandstone sport climbing to the west, and Ocoee-grade whitewater within striking distance. The Tennessee River runs right past downtown for flat-water days.
It's a university city with real healthcare-and-manufacturing jobs and southern cost of living. The mountains hazy-blue on the horizon every evening — you stop taking it for granted about never.
— Katie