Tennessee does not mess around when it comes to places to cool off. Sure, you can spend a sticky summer afternoon at a neighborhood pool with concrete under your feet and a whistle blowing every ten minutes.
Or you can do what locals do and head for the kind of swimming hole that feels half-earned, half-whispered-about. We’re talking waterfall basins, blue-green pools, cold mountain creeks, and rocky pockets of water that make a chlorinated deep end seem painfully boring by comparison.
Some of these spots come with short hikes. Some are almost suspiciously easy to reach…