I recently stayed in Johnson City TN in an airbnb and the host was BLACK - his profile on Airbnb (usually your face is pictured) is just an emoji lol.
He was fine, it was in this like housing development a small two story townhome. It was fine except I turned the air conditioning up and it was CURSED and I could not get it to turn off - so it was blowing cold air all night even when I outright turned the thermostat off. I woke up in a bit of a haze and set sights for Max Patch - since I saw it get shilled on 4chan as overcrowded. Heck of a drive and I had to ignore my GPS cuz it kept telling me to take dirt/back roads, many of which are fucked by Helene. I got there just in time, as I finished my hike a bunch of noisy people were starting.
Tip: don't do the loop, the loop goes annoying far out of the way with nothing to see. Make a left on the trail from the parking area, then when you get to the 360 bit, turn around and come down on the service road you came in on.

My tip: Big South Fork, it's fun, there's lots of overlooks, it's not as crowded as the Smokies.