Point Park National Park: Lookout Mountain (GA & TN)

Worth it just for the amazing view of the Chattanooga basin below; and if you’re a historical buff, as I am, I would suggest that you first watch the ‘Battles of Chattanooga‘ show (about 30 minutes long) in the building across the street so that when you do look over the basin you can easily reimagine the battle in your head.

This precipice is part of The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, which memorializes the major Civil war battle that happened here. For a bunch of tactical reasons control of Chattanooga was pivotal to winning the Civil war, and stand off between confederate and Union troops went on for months.

Standing on it, it’s military importance is kind of obvious but still, for those who aren’t up to date with the Civil war history, I would strongly suggest paying a few dollars more to see the show in the building across the street — they also have food and a load of stuff for sale that your kids will pester you to get for them.

You’d think the National Park’s Visitor Center would include something like that as part of the price (like they do in the visitor center adjoining the Chickamauga battlefield), but they don’t… so you’re going to have to shill out a few more bucks, but honestly… I think it’s worth it.  This trip was actually my 2nd viewing; the first time I saw it was during a road trip with a friend from Chicago to Orlando, about 10 years ago, and as we are both ‘readers’ we felt it was one of the highlights of the trip (stunningly so). How often can you say you saw a tourist attraction and had it stick in your mind?

That said, if you DO go to the National Park’s tourist center as well, rather than just buying the ticket for this park I suggest paying $80 for the one year pass. Firstly, it’s good for four people and will get you into every National Park nation wide, and secondly, the republicans have been doing everything they can to defund and dismantle the national park system, so we have got to do our bit to help keep it alive for future generations. Since I was alone, I comped 4 people standing in line entry into the park.