Dolly Parton Is Inviting 10 Families On a Dream Dollywood Vacation — How to Enter

The country legend told Travel + Leisure about her love of her home state of Tennessee.

Growing up in the Great Smoky Mountains' Locust Ridge in East Tennessee as the fourth of 12 children, Dolly Parton admitted that her modest roots meant she wasn’t exposed to travel early in her life. “If we got the chance, our vacations were down to the river for a picnic, or to visit relatives,” the country music legend told Travel + Leisure. “We were not a family that were lucky enough to say that we could go on a vacation."

That was one of her impetuses behind her creating a true family destination with her theme park Dollywood. As its “Dreamer in Chief,” she’s now partnered with Tennessee Tourism to grant dream getaways to 10 families of four, who will be treated to a VIP Dollywood experience, including a two-night Dollywood resort stay, when the Pigeon Forge park opens for its 40th season in 2025.

“We wished we could go on vacations, but we were not that family to have that kind of money,” the megastar said. “So I'm so proud that I've been able to provide a wonderful place like Dollywood for families.”

In addition to attending the opening of the landmark anniversary season (“We’re still in the middle of planning, but I’m hopefully going to do some little concerts and other special things”), the winning families will also get season passes to Dollywood, a signed guitar, and an activity pass to Pigeon Forge’s family-friendly attractions. “They have some of everything in the area,” she added, calling out examples like putt-putt golf, helicopter rides, and dinner shows, like Dolly Parton’s Stampede.

To choose the winners, Parton has traded her “Coat of Many Colors” for a Willy Wonka-inspired coat, hiding butterfly tickets randomly inside the 90 pages of 10 copies of the new Tennessee Playcation Kid’s Guide. (It can be pre-ordered now at DollyPlaycation.com, and will arrive by Nov. 25.)

The idea behind the guide is to help kids get involved with planning their family trips. “When a child feels like they’re a part of making something happen, they're going to enjoy it more,” the Imagination Library founder said. “Kids know what they want — more than the parents sometimes, so I think it’s good for the parents to listen and let them participate in planning the fun they want to have.”

So many of the memories of Parton’s youth were forged in the mountains she grew up in, as she said it was “always a treat for us to go up to Gatlinburg” which she still considers one of the most “special" places. She also recalled that “one of the big things for families was getting to go to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to picnic and play in those wonderful cold mountain streams.”

As she grew up, she found her own way too. “When I first started dating, it was a big deal for us to get to go to the Smoky Mountains with friends, and walk around Gatlinburg," she said.

The 10-time Grammy winner still marvels at her old stomping grounds being the most visited national park in the National Park Service, especially impressed with the wide variety of native trees there. She's also "very honored and proud" to have her own statue in front of the courthouse in nearby Sevierville, Tennessee.

Beyond the area that she grew up in, Parton is also a huge fan of her entire home state as a perfect travel destination. “It’s like three states in one. You’ve got your mountains in East Tennessee, your rolling hills here in middle Tennessee, and then your flat areas down in West Tennessee,” she said. “We've got the rivers, lakes, mountains, hiking, and we've got all sorts of music — blues, country, and mountain. I think it's just great — not just because I was born and raised here — but I've been everywhere, and Tennessee is the greatest state."

While she first visited and then moved to Nashville, she was laser-focused on becoming a country star, but also eventually began to also appreciate its unique offerings. “It was only after I started to date my husband, Carl, who's born and raised in the Nashville area, that I actually got to see and do a lot of stuff in the area,” she admitted. “Now I've made up for it.”

She recommends first-time visitors go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Ryman Auditorium, and Grand Ole Opry, and that families might especially enjoy the Nashville Zoo and Adventure Science Center.

But she also recommends travelers pick up a brochure and find their own way. “There's all those little pockets of gold in Tennessee that you don't hear people talk about, but they're great and real,” she told T+L. One of her favorites is the old English village of Rugby in the Cumberland Plateau. “They have old buildings where the settlers came so many years ago from England — I love to go through there,” she said.

Another of her favorites is “all those mountains in and around Chattanooga,” she said. “Those views, my goodness, it’s just incredible.”

It’s those kinds of inspiring experiences that she believes are so important for families to enjoy together. “We've been to school, we've been to soccer, we've been to basketball, we've been to the mall, we've been to this, we've been to that,” she said. “I think everybody loves to feel that feeling of freedom — we're getting away from the house, getting away from routine. It's that feeling of anticipation of like, ‘Oh, we're going somewhere!’ and the whole excitement of thinking you're really getting away from home.”

As “Aunt Granny” to her nieces and nephews, she’s always been about exposing her family to other places, including the beach and Walt Disney World, as soon as she could. “After I got to where I could make money and afford to take them places, I was always taking them on vacation,” Parton said. “We didn't have that luxury growing up, but I've made up for it, through the years with the kids.”

But when it comes down to it, her heart is still where her home is. “In Tennessee, you don't even have to get out of state to find anything in the world you want to see and do,” she said. “I would say it is the most wonderful place that you could ever imagine going. There's just not a thing that you can't find in Tennessee!”