Dallas to Great smoky mountains in Nov

Hello All, Could you please help me in planning the route
Plan time is ~1week(Nov 18-25), family of 3 (1-12yr old)
Drive from Dallas to Smoky mountains (most probably to Gatlinburg, yet to book cabin)
Plan to start on friday evening around 5pm, Reach Hot Springs, AR (yet to book place for the night)
Check Hotsprings on sat and drive to Memphis and stay for the night
Sunday - drive to Gatlinburg

Start back from Gatlinburg on thursday and reach home on sat

Does it work? Are there any places which are must see, hoping weather would be ok with no snow. Do we need to prepare for snow to/from smokies?
Any locations for photography on the way to smokies?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome back!

I don't know if I'd advise driving from Dallas to Hot Springs starting at 5pm, that's a 5 hour drive. I'd leave earlier (3pm at the latest) or wait till the next morning.

Hot Springs to Memphis is only 3 hours, I'd advise you leave Hot Springs no later than 4pm.

Memphis to Gatlinburg is a full day's drive - 7 hours.

When you use a software mapping routine to plot your course and give you time and mileage estimates, the mileage numbers will be spot on. The time estimates will be a total fantasy. That's because software makes several very unrealistic assumptions, such as: You will never be doing anything but driving - no stops for food, fuel, or bathroom breaks. You will always be traveling at the speed limit - never seeing a stop sign, traffic light, slow moving RV passing a truck, construction zone. And your children will be perfectly behaved throughout the drive, never causing any distraction for the driver. None of those assumptions is rooted anywhere near reality. In truth, on a Friday evening with heavy traffic outbound from Dallas, with school-aged children (or younger), you are looking at a minimum 6 hours of driving to Hot Springs, And that's if you use I-30, in which case Hot Springs is not on your route to Gatlinburg. If, instead, you plan to use US-82/US-70 which are slower roads and take you through many small towns, you're looking at something more like seven hours to Hot Springs. That's too much for you and just way to much for the kids. I could easily see you not rolling into Hot Springs until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be aiming for much farther than Texarkana on the first night and maybe Jackson TN on the second to more evenly split up the drive to Gatlinburg.

AZBuck

Thank you glc & AZBuck.
based on your suggestion, this is the current plan
1. Drive from Dallas to Hot springs, AR on Sat morning
2. Visit Hot Springs and drive to Memphis and stay there on sat night.
3. Drive to Gatlinburg on sunday morning.

Planning to drive back to Dallas from Gatlinburg through Atlanta. Could you please suggest if there are places to visit and stay for a night.

Thanks

You won't have much time at all to visit Hot Springs if you do that. I'd recommend you leave Friday afternoon/evening like originally planned and spend the night in Texarkana.