The days are longer and warmer, the nights are milder, the trees are blooming, and East Tennessee is awash in color as everything is blooming. Allergy sufferers take note, the next month or so is a high pollen period and even folks who don’t think they have allergies may find themselves sneezing.

Something not to sneeze at however is the number of visitors already here right now. The restaurant parking lots are full and there is a wait tonight at most of the better dining spots. Another sign that spring is here is the traffic has started to pick up although it isn’t yet an issue – that comes in July and October when those of us who live here generally want to take our vacations elsewhere and let the tourists have Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Sevierville, formerly not greatly affected by tourism now finds itself in the middle of the mix due to all of the new commercial development in the city so it is no longer exempt from the crowds either.

Mind you, I’m not complaining about the traffic even though I am definitely at least a type A personality. In fact, a friend said years ago that my personality was best described as type A prime! When I find myself stuck in traffic, I have a mind game I play that helps to ease the frustration. I simply imagine a dollar sign hovering in mid air over each of the slowly moving vehicles around me. This symbolizes the fact that all of these folks will inject dollars into our local economy to eat someplace, sleep somewhere, and occasionally someone purchases real estate. Thinking about the economic impact our tourism industry has on the area (and my own finances) removes 99% of the stress caused by the traffic and other delays frequently encountered during our peak tourism seasons.

Of course, if you don’t own a rental property or other investment here, the large number of vehicles encountered during our peak seasons only bring frustration. Why not own your own Smoky Mountain vacation getaway and let visitors to the area help pay for it? If you want more information about any sort of real estate investment here in the Smokies please contact me. Then you too can start to see those floating dollar signs that remove stress…