Knoxville sits nestled on the Tennessee River about an hour from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Once called the 'scruffy little city', the downtown is undergoing a rapid renaissance as young people move into the lofts and apartments created from the factories and warehouses of another era. On any evening of the week, throngs of residents and visitors can be seen at the sidewalk cafes, theaters, restaurants and night clubs along Gay Street and Market Square. The University of Tennessee, with its 27,000 students, is within walking distance of the downtown, separated only by the World's Fair Park.

One can still see remnants of the 1982 World's Fair in the Sunsphere, a rising structure topped with a gold sphere which dots Knoxville's skyline, however, most of the other structures from the Fair were removed to create a large city park which attracts families, students, and artists on weekends and sunny days. The World's Fair brought a lot of attention and development to the city, including high-rise office structures, and the four-star Hilton, Crowne Plaza and Marriott hotels.

Knoxville is home to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, but the city seems dominated by the University of Tennessee Volunteers (men only) and Lady Volunteers athletics. The basketball teams play in the 21,000+ seat Thompson Boling Arena, and the nationally recognized football team plays in Neyland Stadium, one of the largest on-campus stadiums in the world at 103,000 seating capacity. During the fall you will find plenty of orange in the foliage, but you will see Big Orange year round with the people of Knoxville.

The city is also the home or birthplace of a number of cultural figures, such as authors Cormac McCarthy, James Agee, and Alex Haley, and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who mentions the city in all of his films (remember the watch in Pulp Fiction?) The Everly Brothers attended high school here and began performing on radio in Knoxville. Dolly Parton began her career in Knoxville. Senator Howard Baker, actor David Keith, film director Clarence Brown and opera singer Mary Costa are all from the Knoxville area. Less culturally, actor and daredevil Johnny Knoxville is from the city.