Gatlinburg

Colonial Properties publishes starting rates on its five and six bedroom cabins. Angel's View in Pigeon Forge sleeps 18, from $289 a night. Grand Getaway Lodge sleeps 19, from $248. Amazing Rocky Top Views sleeps 20, from $285. Smoky Mountain Cinema sleeps 14, from $206. Smoky Skies in Gatlinburg sleeps 14, from $356.

Those are floor rates rather than quotes for a specific weekend, and they climb in October leaf season. The shape is the point though. Split three nights at $289 across twelve men and the cabin itself is about $72 each for the entire trip. Lodging is not what makes this trip expensive.

Elk Springs Resort publishes its fee mechanics, which most managers do not. A booking there carries a booking fee of $45 to $90, a non refundable damage waiver of $45 to $90 covering up to $1,500 of accidental damage, and a cleaning fee that starts at $35 for a one bedroom. Elk Springs does not publish the cleaning fee for a large cabin, so ask before you book.

Then the tax. The combined rate is 12.75 percent, and it is applied to the rent, to every fee, and to trip insurance if you buy it. That last part is what people miss. You are taxed on the cleaning fee.

Parkside Cabin Rentals charges $65 per pet, maximum two, 50 pound limit each, and a damage fee of $45 to $89 that covers only $500.

Fees and tax together land roughly a quarter to a third on top of the rent, not the three or four percent a single occupancy tax line suggests.

Sevier County permits short term rentals by how many people sleep in them. A property sleeping twelve or fewer pays a flat $250. At thirteen or more the permit becomes $250 plus $25 per occupant, and the building crosses into materially stricter fire code, up to and including a sprinkler requirement. In Pigeon Forge, hotel and motel building standards apply once a structure accommodates twelve or more.

That is why so many cabins stop at sleeps 12. It is not the floor plan. It is the permit.

So if your group is ten or twelve, the whole market is open to you. Invite one more guy, or let two people bring partners, and you are shopping a smaller and more expensive set of properties. Lock the number before you shop.

Anakeesta, the ridge top park above town, starts at $37 a head. There is whitewater on the Pigeon River, off road ATV trips in the hills, and enough moonshine and whiskey tasting to fill an afternoon. Dollywood is twenty minutes away in Pigeon Forge if that is your group.

Knoxville is an hour away and McGhee Tyson, TYS, is a real commercial airport with major carrier service, so this is one of the few cabin markets a group can genuinely fly into. Driving, it is 3 hours 41 from Nashville, 3 hours 53 from Atlanta, and 3 hours 57 from Charlotte.