The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee & Kentucky: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos [Paperback]

Johnny Molloy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Best in Tent Camping - Menasha Ridge | Publication Date: May 1, 2002

From towering mountains to rolling bluegrass hills and from thundering waterfalls to placid ponds, the campgrounds profiled encompass the full range of natural beauty awaiting campers in both states. Also includes recreational and cultural activities.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

If you subscribe to the opinion that televisions, Japanese lanterns, and electric guitars are not essential camping equipment, The Best in Test Camping should be your constant companion.From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Mississippi River, camping has never been better in both the Volunteer State and the Bluegrass State. The Best in Test Camping: Tennessee & Kentucky is a guidebook for tent campers who like quiet, scenic, and serene campsites. It's the perfect resource if you blanch at the thought of pitching a tent on a concrete slab, trying to sleep through the blare of another camper's boombox, or waking to find your tent surrounded by a convoy of RVs.The Best in Tent Camping will guide you to the quietest, most beautiful, most secure, and best managed campgrounds in Tennessee and Kentucky. Painstakingly selected from hundreds of campgrounds in both states, each campsite is rated for: beauty, noise, privacy, security, spaciousness, and cleanliness. Each campground profile provides essential details on facilities, reservations, fees, and restrictions, as well as an accurate, easy-to-read map, making the campground a snap to locate. (6 X 9, 224 pages, maps)

About the Author

Born in Tennessee, Johnny Molloy moved to Knoxville in 1980 to attend the university of Tennessee. The lure of nearby Smoky Mountain National Park was too hard to resist. In spite of a disastrous first camping trip, Molloy developed a life-long passion for the outdoors, which he continues today, 15 years and 1,300 nights later. He has published several hiking guides to Virginia ,West Virginia, and Tennessee as well as tent camping guides to Florida and Colorado. The Mount Rogers Outdoor Recreation Guide is his eighth book

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Menasha Ridge Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089732370X
• ISBN-13: 978-0897323703
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Kentucky
  • #12 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Tennessee

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Deal, June 5, 2002

By 

Lisa Daniel (Nashville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee & Kentucky: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos (Paperback)

I have known Johnny Molloy for nearly 20 years and he is one camping fool -- he has camped all over the place. And when he finally wrote a campground guidebook for his home state of Tennessee I just had to buy it.

Sure enough it's a winner.

Johnny covered all the highlights of Tennessee -- from the bluffs of the mighty Mississippi River at Fort Pillow to the wild shoreline of the Nolichucky River in East Tennessee.

I have taken him up on his recommmendation to hit Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area, which Tennessee shares with Kentucky -- that place will surprise. Check it out. Johnny's got 4 campgrounds from LBL detailed in the book, among 60 total campgrounds.

I haven't yet explored Kentucky yet, but am planning a trip to Mammoth Cave and the Daniel Boone National Forest. Actually, I have the feeling Johnny is going to lead me to a lot of places I've never been!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My camping bible!, December 17, 2002

By 

Jacquelynn White (Nashville,TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee & Kentucky: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos (Paperback)

The best thing I like about Molloy's book is that it tells me a lot of great new places to explore. I found Montgomery Bell State Park and it was just like he described. My family and I enjoyed the lakes, trails and especially the campground. Buy this book if you to branch out and see some new sites in Tennessee and Kentucky!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not necessarily TENT camping..., March 30, 2007

By 

Drakeyula (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee & Kentucky: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos (Paperback)

My girlfriend and I recently moved to Tennessee and were looking for the BEST places to go TENT camping. What do ya know... someone wrote a book called "The BEST in TENT Camping in TN..." One passage in particular caught my eye.. the one about Edgar Evins State Park. I believe Johnny's description stated "you literally pitch your TENT [people literally park RV's on these platforms] on a level platform notwithstanding that the ground recedes below you... The experience is akin to camping [parking] on a deck looking out on the land below. And I like it." A unique experience such as this right in our own backyard? We were off. We hate RV's, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos. To us the whole meaning of TENT camping is the return to nature, solitude, quiet, and good old fashioned roughing it. This particular park deferred from all of the above. The supposedly unique platforms were mereley individual parking lots spread vast inches from one another, and feet, maybe even yards away from Coke machines and showers; not to mention the electricity and running water ON EVERY PLATFORM. Oh, and the view was nonexistent as well. The lake view off the platform front was blocked by trees-what happened to looking out on the land below?; while the view off the back of the platform was, well, the road you drove in on... Yes, all of 60 platforms sang the same sad story.

Don't get me wrong. If you're an RV owner or a luxury camper you will love this campground! However, if you're looking for a book to direct you to the best TENT camping in TN or KY, ie a book entitled "The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee & Kentucky..." this book may miss the mark. Although lovely in its own respects, Edgar Evins is more like a Motel 6 minus the roof, but fairly, at half the price. Johnny sighted this campground as the most unusual in the book. My warning is that "most unusual" claim turned out to be most dissapointing. Read with caution and research these sites outside of this book alone.