The Best Places to Visit in Tennessee
Between country music, white-water rafting, and nightlife, Tennessee has something for the foodie, the history buff, and the adrenaline junkie. Here’s our guide to the best places to visit in the Volunteer State!
Memphis
Memphis may owe its physical existence to the mighty Mississippi, but it’s music that gives this city its soul. The blues were born here, and they still call Memphis home in nightclubs and juke joints around the city. But the Bluff City isn’t just the blues: it’s gospel, Elvis Presley, Soulsville, Rev. Al Green, Isaac Hayes, and Sun Studio. It’s also more than music: Memphis is an urban center with fine dining, parks, and the state’s best visual arts scene. For example, visitors can unwind by watching the ducks get the red-carpet treatment at The Peabody Hotel Memphis, fuel up with a smoky plate of barbecue, or admire the art in Brooks Museum.
Don’t Miss: Beale Street
Beale Street is the best place in the state, if not the country, to catch live blues seven nights a week. Once the epicenter of African American life, this iconic street is a laid-back spot for families to stroll, eat, and visit museums during the day. Stay long enough and watch it transform into a thrilling strip of nightclubs later in the evening.
Western Plains
Look for bald eagles and wild turkeys amid the knob-kneed cypress trees at Reelfoot Lake, or hike and camp along the shores of Kentucky Lake at the Land Between the Lakes. Along the Tennessee River is the state’s only pearl farm, the charming river town of Savannah, and Shiloh, the site of an epic Civil War battle. Don’t miss Billy Tripp’s outsider art masterpiece, Mindfield.
Don’t Miss: Discovery Park of America
Please every member of the family from your grandma to your 3-year-old with over 70,000 square feet of hands-on nature, science, technology, history, and art exhibitions.
Nashville
Even as Nashville grows, it is in no danger of losing its quirkiness. It’s the epicenter of country music: home to the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and hundreds of recording studios. It is the place where thousands of musicians and songwriters come to make it, and the city’s nightlife is all the richer for it. Historic antebellum homes, fine arts, and excellent dining appeal to sophisticates. Museums, historic sites, and the unique Tennessee capitol recall the city’s history, while expansive parks invite recreation in this leafy, livable city.
Don’t Miss: Country Music Hall of Fame
The definitive authority on American country music takes superfans all the way from the Scotch-Irish ballads sung by the southern mountains’ first settlers to some of the genre’s hottest stars of today. See iconic instruments like Johnny Cash’s Martin D-355, hear studio-quality recordings of seminal performances, and let your own creative juices flow in a songwriting session at the Taylor Swift Education Center.
Middle Tennessee
Tennessee’s midsection is a road trip waiting to happen. The landscape is rural and beckons pure relaxation. This is Tennessee Walking Horse Country, where picturesque horse farms dot the landscape and Tennessee sipping whiskey is made. In Amish country, black buggies and old-fashioned homesteads litter the back roads. The Natchez Trace Parkway is a scenic, historic highway that marks one of the oldest overland routes between Natchez, Mississippi, and Nashville. Explore the heartland in search of perfectly fried chicken, the world’s largest MoonPie, and exciting summertime festivals. Don’t forget to sip some of that Lynchburg lemonade.
Don’t Miss: The Hermitage
Experience the good, the bad, and the ugly of President Andrew Jackson’s legacy at his home, where tours focus not only on Jackson and the construction and decoration of the mansion, but also on the stories of the enslaved African Americans that define the Hermitage’s history.
Cumberland Plateau
The Cumberland Plateau is a breathtaking landscape of caves, waterfalls, gorges, and mountains. It is home to some of the state’s best parks: the Big South Fork and Pickett State Park in the north, Fall Creek Falls State Park in the center, and Savage Gulf in the south. Come here for outdoor recreation, including hiking, biking, horseback riding, camping, and kayaking. The plateau offers destinations with fascinating history: the lost English colony of Rugby, the idealistic experiment of Cumberland Homesteads, and the Children’s Holocaust Memorial at Whitwell.
Don’t Miss: Cumberland Homesteads
Originally a New Deal project created to combat the poverty of the Great Depression, this community still boasts an array of original homestead houses, as well as two museums that allow history buffs to take a peek into the daily lives of the homesteaders.
Chattanooga and the Overhill Country
Nestled in a bend of the Tennessee River and surrounded by the Cumberland Plateau and foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Chattanooga is not called the Scenic City for nothing. It’s a great place to bring the kids thanks to its excellent aquarium, children’s museum, parks, caves, and other family-friendly attractions. East of the city lies the southern Cherokee National Forest and the Ocoee River—a destination for those interested in white-water rafting and other outdoor pursuits. No other region offers a better glimpse at the legacy of the Cherokee, who once populated the hills and valleys of this Overhill land.
Don’t Miss: Rafting the Ocoee
Get the adrenaline flowing and check white-water rafting off your bucket list with over 20 thrilling rapids such as Grumpy, Broken Nose, Double Suck, Slingshot, and Hell’s Hole.
Knoxville
Like better-known Memphis and Nashville, Knoxville is emerging as a center for live music and the arts. Galleries, restaurants, nightclubs, and theaters on Gay Street, Market Square, and the Old City are funky, unpretentious, and fun. Of course, sports fans have been coming to Knoxville for years to watch the University of Tennessee Volunteers play football and basketball, and to tour the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Attractions such as the East Tennessee History Center and the gold-plated Sunsphere add to the city’s draw.
Don’t Miss: The Sunsphere
Standing at 266 feet tall, this 1982 World’s Fair monument now boasts an iconic observation deck. With the Tennessee River sweeping southward, the University of Tennessee sitting on the river bluff, and interstate highways slicing this way and that, it’s like seeing the world in miniature.
Great Smoky Mountains
Tennessee’s most picturesque wilderness is the Great Smoky Mountains. It is the vistas that first draw you in: the soft-edged peaks enveloped by wispy white “smoke,” touched by brilliant red and orange at sunset, and crowned by crisp white snow in winter. Hike through old-growth forest and mysterious mountain balds. Camp next to a mountain stream. Hunt for wildflowers. Bicycle the Cades Cove loop to see historic cabins and churches. Outside the boundary of the park are gateway communities offering everything from the Dollywood theme park to the roots of mountain arts and crafts.
Don’t Miss: Newfound Gap
You can’t visit the country’s most popular national park without seeing this mountain pass, which, located at 5,048 feet, provides refreshing cool air, spectacular views, and the opportunity to straddle the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina.
The First Frontier
Early settlers in the 1770s first moved to the eastern mountains of northeast Tennessee. More than 150 years later, the descendants of these mountain folks brought forth modern country music during the Bristol sessions. This region of Tennessee is more closely linked to Appalachia than any other; this is a landscape of hills and hollers, small towns, and traditional ways. Jonesborough is the first city of storytelling, and the Tri-Cities draw race fans to Bristol Motor Speedway.
Don’t Miss: Gray Fossil Site and Hands on! Discovery Center
The perfect trip to Tennessee is not complete without a visit to this interactive museum, where children can fly an airplane, visit a coal mine, and engineer a rocket as adults uncover the exciting secrets behind fossil hunting.
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