Maryville & Alcoa car rental, with pickup at McGhee Tyson

Who rents a car in Maryville and Alcoa

Blount County gets a steady stream of people who need a car for a few days or a few weeks:

• Family visits. Flying in to see family in Maryville, Alcoa or Louisville and don’t want to borrow someone’s second car all week.
• Maryville College weekends. Move-in, parents’ weekends and graduation, when one family car isn’t enough.
• Work trips. Blount County is a manufacturing county — DENSO’s big Maryville plant among others — and a lot of visits mean a week or more on site. For longer assignments, see our monthly rental page.
• Your own car is in the shop. Here’s how we handle insurance replacement rentals.
• Cabins on the quiet side of the Smokies. Townsend and Walland are a lot calmer than Gatlinburg, and you’ll need a car to get anywhere.

How pickup works for Blount County

Straight answer: our cars are based in east Knoxville, and our standard delivery radius is about 10 miles from the car. Most of Maryville is farther than that. That’s why the airport is the natural handoff point for Blount County: McGhee Tyson pickup is available on every car we have, and the airport sits right on Alcoa Highway between Knoxville and Maryville.

Need the car at a Maryville address instead? Call or text (865) 309-4897 with where you are. A lot of the time we can make it work; when we can’t, we’ll tell you early rather than leave you guessing. More on how far we go on our service area page.

The quiet side of the Smokies: Townsend and Cades Cove

Most visitors enter the national park through Gatlinburg. From Maryville, you’re closer to the other door. Take US-321 east through Walland to Townsend, and at the Townsend Wye follow Laurel Creek Road to Cades Cove: an 11-mile, one-way loop through a mountain valley that’s open sunrise to sunset. The Park Service says to allow two to four hours.

The Foothills Parkway West also starts on this side. Its Walland entrance opens onto a 16-mile stretch to Wears Valley that only opened in November 2018, and the parkway runs 33 miles in total along Chilhowee Mountain. Stop at Look Rock for the view, and in fall it’s one of the best color drives in the region — see our fall color drives guide.

The rules are the same as anywhere in the park: there’s no entrance fee, but any car parked for more than 15 minutes needs a parking tag ($5 a day, $15 a week, $40 a year). There’s no gas in the park, so fill up in Maryville.

Which car fits a Blount County trip

• Business or a solo visit: the Honda Accord Hybrid. Comfortable, quiet, and cheap to run on the Alcoa Highway commute.
• A family visit or a cabin weekend: one of our 7-seat SUVs, so everyone fits in one car.
• Moving help or a hauling weekend: the Ford F-150 pickup.
• Keeping it cheap: our economy cars, compared on the cheap car rental page.

See every car, with photos and current rates, on the fleet page.

Common questions