First, let me start by saying as a longtime lover of country music (and beer), visiting Nashville has always been a dream. As also being a fan of all things natural, mountainous and beautiful, I decided to round up six of my girlfriends, and LITERALLY jam pack a four day vacation with as many of the must-dos that Tennessee has to offer. From rafting, hiking, karaoke, to moonshine tasting – with a lot of luck, and only a little sleep, we saw the best Tennessee has to offer!
Our trip started with an early flight into BNA (Nashville’s airport), with our rental van and white water rafting trip already booked, we drove NASCAR-esque to Gatlinburg to white water raft on Pigeon river, just 35 minutes outside of Gatlinburg (where we would be spending the first day and half of our trip). Side note – it is approximately a 3 hour drive from BNA to Gatlinburg, and there is a one-hour time difference (Gatlinburg is on Eastern Time, and Nashville is on Central Time)! This is something I neglected to realize prior to booking our trip down the river. LUCKILY, I reserved us an extra hour of time to get there, just in case of flight delays. However, this caused a mad dash driving our minivan through the mountains to make it on time to our reservation.
We managed to make it to the Smoky Mountain Rafting location just in the nick of time (after changing in our car and missing the safety precaution speech), and needless to say, seven girls, first time water rafting – it was an hour and a half of smiles, laughing and trying our best to stop each other from falling over board into the frigid mountain water.
Famished from our adventures on the water, we decided to grab a quick bite to eat at the local BBQ joint Hungry Bear BBQ, and carried on our way to our cabin in the Smokys!
We stayed at the Gatlinburg Falls Resort and booked the “Peaceful & Easy Feeling” cabin. Equipped with a hot tub, an oh-so-romantic actual heart shaped Jacuzzi tub, bunk beds and game room, and views to kill, we could understand where the name came from. After a couple hours of relaxing, and marveling at fireflies (we Floridians don’t have those), we decided to check out downtown Gatlinburg for some Ole Smoky Mountain Moonshine & Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey tasting! Warning – during the weeknights, bars and restaurants in downtown Gatlinburg close fairly early, so make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get down town and check out some of the bars (and other attractions).
Due to a long day of flying, driving, rafting and booze-sampling, we called it a semi-early night and prepared to start our second day in the mountains bright and early with some country breakfast and a hike. We stopped in for a quick breakfast at a little homey country cooking spot down the road, because I HAD to have some home-style biscuits and gravy, and then we decided to follow it with an easy hike to Grotto Falls. This would take us only a couple of hours, and was approximately 3 miles in total. Since we were heading to Nashville right after, we decided against a longer, more vigorous hike (which there are plenty available in Smoky Mountain National Park, if you’re into that). Despite the mild hike, Grotto Falls DID NOT disappoint! There were many awesome photo ops along the way and the waterfall itself was enough to marvel in what Mother Nature has to offer.
After spending a day and half in the Smokys, we were ready to eat, drink (a lot), dance and karaoke! We loaded up our mom-van and headed to the country music capital, Nashville! We stayed at in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom house found using AirBNB, located right off of Fatherland Street, which was about a 4-5 minute Uber (or Lyft) ride to downtown. We had to utilize every sleeping surface (couches, air mattresses and beds), but overall, it was perfect!
Here are my personal recommendations for visiting Nashville:
Obviously, you have to spend some time on Broadway St. This is what I call “the Bourbon Street of Nashville”. It’s the most touristy, and a little more pricey than some of the local areas, BUT, it lives up to the hype – loud, live country music, dancing and a lot of young, fun people ready to party. Also, here is where you can find lots of little gift shops, and other stereotypical Nashville type souvenir items that we all love. By the way, this is a very popular place for bachelor and bachelorette parties, as the streets were FLOODED with them on the Nashville Pedal Taverns. Here are some of the places we visited on Broadway throughout our evening of bar hopping:
Honky Tonk Central (A 3-story bar with a different band on each level – lots of fun!)
Tootsies Orchid Lounge
Tin Roof (Here we sang along to the live band while we drunkenly ate hot chicken tenders – highly recommend)
Tequila Cowboy
We capped our night off with a lovely karaoke performance from my friends at Wanna B’s Karaoke Bar (HIGHLY entertaining – definitely go there at the end of the night when everyone has had some liquid courage)
The Gulch
The Gulch is a neighborhood right on the outskirts of downtown and has some pretty cool street murals and one of the best known and popular brunch places in Nashville (you could tell this from the line wrapped around the block just to get in). Brunch at Biscuit Love was to die for. As a person who typically eats healthy, even I will admit this was worth every. single. calorie. I had an AMAZING bloody mary and “The Princess”, which is a homemade biscuit, with Nashville style spicy “hot chicken”, pickles, mustard and honey (also topped with some gravy – a special not listed on the menu) don’t knock it ‘till you try it, SO GOOD.
Street Murals
Since we’re obviously in the age of social media, one of the coolest photo-ops we found was the #whatliftsyou mural located in the Gulch. Also, the famous “I believe in Nashville” (located in several areas) is a must.
Country Music Hall of Fame
After curing our “mild” hangovers with some greasy chicken and bloody marys, we made our way to the Country Music Hall of Fame. This was actually a lot more fun than I even expected it to be. They had items such as costumes and even casual clothing from some of country music’s biggest stars that ranged from Johnny Cash, Kenny Chesney, to Taylor Swift. They also had some interactive items like recording in a “studio” (I wish I kept the videos of us singing.. er I mean.. screeching to everyone else in the rooms loathing), to designing your own album covers – really quirky and hilarious. Oh, and Elvis Presley’s solid gold Cadillac. I highly recommend checking this out. There are a few other places we didn’t have time to visit, but through the grape vine I’ve heard the Grand Ole Opry is definitely worth seeing.
Go Where the Locals Go
Our second night in Nashville, we decided to stray away from Broadway and check out an area the locals told us about. There were still a lot of college-age partiers, and live music everywhere, but the drinks were much cheaper and I describe it as a more mellow, but still fun, atmosphere. We did a little bar hopping on Division Street. Here we discovered a couple of bars, one called “Winners” and one called “Losers” (we of course opted for, you guessed it, Losers). These were jam packed, live music and cheap drinks – sold! I always try to find out the local favorites when I travel, so definitely feel free to ask around about recommendations of where to eat or drink outside of the strip of Broadway (it helps that the people are very nice there).
Fashion Tip - Not as many locals wear cowboy boots here, but totally acceptable on Broadway St.
The Parthenon
Yes, there is actually a full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville. It’s located in the middle of the beautiful Centennial Park, and features a 42-ft statue of Athena (just like the one in Greece).
One final recommendation for all you bagel snobs out there (like me), if you venture out towards Vanderbilt University, there is this AWESOME bagel place called Proper Bagel. I promise you, you will NOT be disappointed with their varieties of fresh baked bagels, and homemade cream cheeses and cute iced coffees served in jar-like glasses. Since I couldn’t pick just one, my friend and I split two, a pumpernickel bagel with dill pickle cream cheese, and a whole wheat bagel with lavender honey cream cheese. Words or pictures just don’t do justice for my favorite carb.
Wherever you decide to take your Tennessee travels, I have a hard time believing you will be anything but satisfied from the food, drinks, night life, nature and even the people. Happy Traveling!