Our stay at Sky Ridge Yurts was complimentary in exchange for sharing our experience. As always, all opinions are my own.
By the time we arrived at Sky Ridge Yurts, we’d spent several days doing exactly what we normally do on a road trip: moving.
We’d changed hotels, packed and unpacked, explored new places, and filled our days with activities. Our most recent stop was Pigeon Forge, where finding something to do with young kids is certainly not a problem.
I assumed we’d keep that momentum going when we reached Bryson City. Instead, something unexpected happened.
We asked the kids if they wanted to go out and explore or stay at the yurt for a while.
They wanted to stay.
And once we’d settled in, I realized I did too.
Our two nights at Sky Ridge ended up being less about adding another experience to our road trip and more about having somewhere to stop for a while. We still had the mountains outside our door and plenty to explore nearby, but we also had a full kitchen, a living room where the kids could spread out their toys, a dining table for family meals, laundry, and enough space that we didn’t feel like we were all waiting for the next time we needed to leave.
It was something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing after several nights in hotels: a space that temporarily felt like ours.
Our First Impression of Sky Ridge Yurts
I wasn’t quite sure what we’d find when we arrived.
We stayed in the Fontana yurt, which sits close to two neighboring yurts. From the outside, it looked relatively simple, and seeing the other yurts nearby made me wonder how private it would actually feel.
Then we opened the door.
The inside was so much bigger than I expected.
Rather than one large room, we had a full kitchen, sizable living area, separate bedroom and bathroom. There was a dining table, a pull-out sofa and chairs, and plenty of open floor space for the kids.
The circular structure and dome overhead still made it unmistakably a yurt, but everything else felt surprisingly home-like.
Sean might have had the best reaction. Within about ten minutes, he announced that we could easily spend a week there.
About ten minutes after that, he’d upgraded us to a month.
I wasn’t quite ready to move in, but I understood what he meant.
What Is It Like Inside a Sky Ridge Yurt?
Calling it a yurt made me expect one large, circular room. Instead, ours felt surprisingly similar to a small vacation rental.
The main living space included a full kitchen, dining area and living room. The kitchen had full-size appliances, along with dishes, cookware and other basics we would have needed to make meals. We didn’t cook much because we were working our way through road-trip leftovers, but having a real kitchen still made a difference. We could store everything in the refrigerator, heat up food when we needed it, and sit down together at an actual table instead of having to go out for every meal.
There was also a coffee maker with coffee provided. Since I don’t drink coffee, I improvised and used it to heat water for tea. A kettle would have been a nice addition, but it worked!
The living room gave the kids plenty of space to spread out with their toys. When it was time to sleep, the sofa and each armchair pulled out into additional beds. The kids wanted to sleep together, but it was nice to be able to give them the option of their own beds if they wanted. Sean and I had the separate bedroom.
And that bedroom deserves some credit. The bed was really comfortable, and having an actual wall between our sleeping space and the kids’ made the yurt feel much more functional for a family than one big open glamping tent. The bedroom also has its own lower ceiling beneath the dome, which I found to be a really nice touch. It kept the bedroom from getting too bright in the early morning despite the natural light coming through the top.
The bathroom was another surprise. It felt like a regular full bathroom rather than something adapted for camping, complete with towels and toiletries. Our son was particularly impressed by the rock sink and immediately wanted everyone else to come see it.
But if you’re staying here in the middle of a longer family trip, one amenity may beat all the others: there’s a washer and dryer.
After days of traveling with two young kids, being able to wash clothes without finding a laundromat or rationing what was left in everyone’s suitcase felt like a genuine luxury. I felt like such a dork for exploring a lovely space and being most excited to see the laundry facilities!
Outside, our yurt had a deck along with a picnic table, grill and fire pit. We didn’t use the grill, but we made a fire on our final night and roasted marshmallows while looking out toward the mountains.
The outdoor space isn’t somewhere I’d send young kids outside to run around independently. The property is mountainous, our yurt sat along a loose-gravel parking area, and the terrain around it was fairly steep. But the deck gave us somewhere to sit outside, and we weren’t coming to Sky Ridge looking for a backyard or playground anyway.
Is Sky Ridge Yurts Good for Young Kids?
This was probably my biggest question before our stay.
There was no pool. No playground. No kids’ club or elaborate list of activities waiting outside our door.
Normally, those aren’t things I require when choosing where we stay. But we’d been moving quickly through our road trip, and I wondered whether two nights in a relatively quiet place would leave our kids asking us what we were going to do every five minutes.
The opposite happened.
When we gave them the choice between going out to explore or staying at the yurt, they wanted to stay.
They spread their toys across the floor, played together, ate at the table and quickly made themselves comfortable. After several days of asking them to walk somewhere, get back in the car or move on to the next activity, I think they were just as ready for downtime as we were.
It also changed the way I thought about glamping with young kids.
Before this trip, the word “glamping” sounded a little intimidating to me as a parent. I pictured beautiful places that were so fancy I wasn’t sure kids would even be welcome. And if they were, I imagined myself following them around worrying that someone was going to spill something or break something expensive.
Sky Ridge felt much more approachable.
It was unique enough that sleeping in a yurt felt like part of the experience, but it wasn’t so precious that we couldn’t actually live in the space. The kids could play. We could eat there. Dirty road-trip clothes could go straight into the washing machine. We weren’t constantly telling the kids not to touch things.
For our family, that was exactly the right amount of glamping.
One thing families should know is that the additional sleeping space is pull-out furniture rather than a second bedroom. That worked perfectly well for our kids, although the sofa bed wasn’t as comfortable as the main bed. Our kids slept normally on it and, true to form, eventually wandered into our room in the wee hours just like they do at home.
Why Sky Ridge Was Exactly What We Needed Mid-Road Trip
We didn’t intentionally plan Sky Ridge as a break from our road trip. It just happened to fall in exactly the right place.
By the time we arrived, we’d spent four nights in hotels and packed a lot into a short amount of time. We’d explored caves, dug for crystals, walked around Chattanooga and spent a couple of very busy days in Pigeon Forge.
I do think we’re pretty good at hotel life with young kids. We unpack what we need, find places for everyone’s stuff, spend a few hours exploring and then pack everything back up again.
What I hadn’t realized was how much I’d missed having some autonomy.
At Sky Ridge, we didn’t have to decide where to go for every meal or worry about keeping everyone relatively contained in one hotel room. The kids could play in the living room while we reorganized our suitcases. We could put the kids to bed and enjoy the night sky out on the deck.
One morning, I took my tea and laptop outside and sat on the deck while the mountains were still covered in mist. It was one of those rare moments on a family road trip when I wasn’t trying to get everyone ready to go somewhere.
We were just there.
On the last evening, we ate together at the table and later headed outside to make a fire and roast marshmallows. None of it was a major vacation activity, but those are some of the moments I remember most clearly from our stay.
That’s what surprised me most about Sky Ridge. I expected the yurt itself to be the experience. Instead, the biggest luxury wasn’t sleeping somewhere unusual. It was having a place that felt like home.
And for a family traveling with young kids, sometimes having somewhere everyone can slow down is exactly what the trip needs.
Exploring the Great Smoky Mountains from Sky Ridge Yurts
As much as we appreciated slowing down at Sky Ridge, we didn’t spend our entire stay at the yurt. Bryson City and the surrounding Great Smoky Mountains give you plenty to explore when you’re ready to head out.
One of our main activities in the area was a ride on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Afterward, we came back to Sky Ridge for a quieter evening.
That balance ended up being one of my favorite things about our stay. We could still get out and explore, but we didn’t feel like we needed to fill every available hour.
The Nantahala Outdoor Center is also convenient to Sky Ridge. We stopped at NOC on our final morning before continuing our road trip. At 3 and 5, our kids were still a little young for many of the adventure activities. That said, we didn’t need an activity planned to enjoy our stop.
We waded in the water, wandered through the shop, grabbed donuts from a food truck and found a spot along the river where we watched rafters go by. It was a nice way to transition back into the next part of the road trip.
Families with older kids could take advantage of more of NOC’s outdoor activities, but even with younger kids, we enjoyed having it nearby. That’s what I liked about Sky Ridge’s location overall. We had plenty to explore when we wanted to get out, but we also had a quiet place to retreat when we didn’t.
What Should Families Know Before Staying at Sky Ridge Yurts?
Before our stay, I had several questions about what staying in a yurt with two young kids would actually be like. Here are the things I’d want another family to know before booking.
Does staying in a yurt feel like camping?
Not really. You still get the fun circular structure, dome overhead and mountain setting, but inside our Fontana yurt we had a full kitchen, bathroom, separate bedroom, WiFi, electricity, heating and cooling, and a washer and dryer. If the idea of camping with young kids sounds exhausting, this is a very different experience.
Will young kids have enough to do at Sky Ridge?
There isn’t a pool or playground, so I wouldn’t book Sky Ridge expecting the property itself to entertain your kids all day. For our family, though, that became part of the appeal.
Our kids had room to play inside, we could spend time together on the deck and we roasted marshmallows around the fire pit. It worked especially well paired with busier days exploring the Smokies.
Does a yurt feel private?
This was something I wondered when we first arrived because our yurt was fairly close to the neighboring ones. Once we were inside, though, we didn’t feel like we were sharing our space with anyone else. The separate bedroom also made a big difference when traveling as a family rather than everyone sleeping together in one open room.
We did end up speaking briefly to two other couples staying in the yurts next to us. Sean and I both agreed that it would be really fun to go back there with some of our friends. That way we could all hang out together, but still have our own space at the end of the night.
How many nights should you stay at Sky Ridge Yurts?
We stayed for two nights, and I wish we’d had one or two more.
For our family on this trip, I think three nights would have been the sweet spot. It would have given us enough time to settle in and actually enjoy the space, while still leaving plenty of room in a Great Smoky Mountains itinerary for other stops.
I really lucked out with the timing of our stay. If I were planning the trip again, I’d intentionally choose Sky Ridge after a few of our busiest days. It was much more of a reset because we’d already reached the point where we needed one, even if we didn’t realize it until we got there.
Planning a stay?
You can check current availability and rates for Sky Ridge Yurts here.
Would We Stay at Sky Ridge Yurts Again?
Absolutely. In fact, my biggest regret about our stay was that we’d only booked two nights.
I think it’s an especially good fit for families who want to experience the Great Smoky Mountains without feeling overwhelmed. You can spend the day exploring and come back to somewhere that gives everyone enough space to decompress, or you can do what we did and occasionally decide not to go anywhere at all.
And if “glamping” sounds a little intimidating with young kids, I wouldn’t let the word scare you away. Sky Ridge gave us the fun of staying somewhere unusual without making us feel like we had to tiptoe around it.
Our kids could be kids. We could slow down. And for a couple of nights in the middle of a very busy family road trip, that was exactly where we wanted to be. Next time, I just hope we can stay a little longer.