Cheap is a relative term and this is especially true of the many different cabin rental opportunities in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. When you rent a cabin you are actually getting something totally different from your normal vacation experience. It is really more accustom to renting a home than it is a hotel room, but most people are going to want to know if getting a cabin rental is going to be cheap in comparison to a hotel. If that is your question then rest assured that a cabin rental can definitely be cheaper than renting a hotel room, even if the cabin is significantly more expensive than the hotel room.

Let me explain. Let us assume the following:

• A bargain basement hotel room in Gatlinburg probably runs around $70-$110 depending on the time of year
• A lower-end cabin rental goes anywhere from $90 a night to $150 depending on the particular cabin's demand throughout the year

So right off the bat the hotel is about $20 cheaper a day during the off season and $40 cheaper during the peak season. Depending on how you handle your vacation you could be spending too much on the hotel room compared to the cabin rental. The main reason for this is the cost of food.

Do you think that two adults could eat for an entire day for under $20 when staying in a hotel? Not if they go out to eat. They will be left eating make your own sandwiches for every meal if they want to stay within that budget. But chances are they are going to go out to eat which can easily cost $40-$50 a day just for two people who eat very modestly.

With a cabin rental, you can buy lots of food and store it in your cabin's fridge. $20 a day can get you a lot of food, maybe even enough for a whole weekend, when you can buy it and cook it yourself.

In addition to food savings, cabin rentals tend to be cheaper because they can house more people comfortably than a hotel. Most hotel rooms can house 4-5 people in them before they are significantly over crowded and uncomfortable to be in, buy getting an extra room is going to double your costs for you vacation. Taking into consideration out $70 per room per night hotel costs this would turn into $14.00-$17.50 per person. A cabin can easily bring this price down even further, with 10-15 people being able to fit in a cabin that costs twice as much as the hotel room. In this case the price per person would be $9.33-$14.00 per person.

If you stack this "crowd" savings together with the food savings then you really have yourself a screaming deal in terms of price for value comparison. The Gatlinburg cabin rental is winning hands down.

Then there are the things that you can't really put a price tag on. One of the most important ones is privacy. When compared to a hotel, with its crowded and noisy hallways, common walls, and public swimming pools and jacuzzi, a cabin seems like an isolated oasis safely tucked away from the throng of humanity.

You can enjoy the solitude of your cabin's hot tub in peace and quiet without the inevitable threat of another couple joining you for a dip. You won't have to see another person in their bathing suit or have a private conversation interrupted by their arrival. At a cabin, your jacuzzi is your jacuzzi and no one is going to come in and take that away from you.

You also won't have to hear loud kids, or your neighbors TV, or people being intimate in the next room over. Your walls are shared with no else other than you.

Some can put a price tag on this, but I'll just say that these too are valuable benefits of getting a cabin in Gatlinburg.

If you are making a trip out to Gatlinburg then you should seriously consider renting a cabin while you are there. When all things are considered, Gatlinburg cabin rentals are cheap when compared with what travels will receive in a hotel.