EilishMcNamee

Any ideas on how to layout my route from Nashville to Dallas over a 5 day course, We travelling next August for my 30th Birthday so any ideas will be great for us! Im researching away on google and this forum popped up with a few good responses to other queries! Slanite!

spirobulldog

Do you live in Nashville or you are flying into there?

Do you want ideas along the way or just a route?

What does that last word/sentence mean?

stonewall49

sorry to butt in, its my 1st time on one of these!! I'm in the process of booking a similar holiday to Eilish flying from Dublin in Nov for 2 weeks & hiring a car.

I'd thinking of Memphis & Nashville, New Orleans & Dallas. Flying into New Orleans & out of Dallas maybe, just started doing the research! Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated

Slanite is said as a toast, meaning "good health" but really meaning "cheers"

spirobulldog

Stonewall,

New Orleans
French Quarter,Bourbon Street, River Road Plantation Homes(this is just outside of New Orleans. I like The Nottoway and Oak Alley homes the best. If your really into the homes, then there are 7 or 8 really good ones to see. We've been to most of them a couple of times each. I would for sure eat at Cafe Du Monde for breakfast. Plenty of good food from inexpensive to expensive. My favorite is probably Commanders Palace

Nashville
Country Music Hall of Fame
The Hermitage--Andrew Jackson Home
Ryman Auditorium
Eat Hot Chicken somewhere
Have a meal at The Loveless Cafe (a bit outside of Nashville)

Memphis
Elvis/Graceland--probably a full day for this
See The Ducks at The Peabody Hotel
Sunday Brunch is very good at the Peabody
Blues City Cafe is my favorite place to eat in Memphis. Rendevous and Gus's Fried Chicken are good as well.

With 2 weeks, you would likely have plenty of time to see a bit more. Perhaps see Great Smoky Mountains/Pigeon Forge. Maybe even The Biltmore House, which is on the North Carolina side of the Smokies.

dwdvagamundo

Eilish--the backbone will be I-40 through Memphis to Little Rock and then I-30 to Dallas. You probably don't have time to go south to New Orleans. Drive time itself should take only ten hours, so you have time to do some things in route and what those are depends on your interests.

The big things that that area of the country has to offer are music, Civil Rights, and American Civil War. Let us know what your interests are and we can be more helpful.

dwdvagamundo

STonewall, if you're going to do all four cities, then I'd fly into Nashville, drive to Memphis, then south more or less along the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Then west to San Antonio and fly out of Dallas. You've got enough time to see a lot.

Memphis is just as much a music city as Nashville: Sun Studio, the birthplace of Rock n Roll; Beale Street; Stax Records Museum (haven't seen this yet, but hear it's good); Graceland. The National Civil Rights Museum is a must.

Further south along the River, Clarksdale Blues Museum; Vicksburg National Battlefield, one of the best of its type. Also visit the Courthouse. Natchez and, as indicated by spirobulldog, some of the plantation homes along the River. You might also want to see Baton Rouge and learn about Huey Long, once one of the most dangerous (politically speaking) and interesting people in America.

New Orleans: food, music and architecture should keep you busy for at least three days. Try Drago's Seafood in the Riverfront Hilton for char-broiled oysters--don't get an entre, just get the oysters, although their gumbo is good.

You could then head west on I-10 to Lafayette, in "Cajun Country"--read "Evangeline" before you go. Probably wouldn't want to do a bayou tour that time of year because of mosquitoes but there are other interesting things in that area.

Then continue west on I-10 through Houston to San Antonio for the Alamo, and then north to Dallas.

stonewall49

Thank you so much both of you. I've loads to goggle before booking flights on Friday. Thanks a mill

spirobulldog

I almost mentioned Natchez. It's hard to know if you want to see that many plantation homes, plus The Hermitage and even The Biltmore. Biltmore is in a class all of it's own, but the rest are all somewhat similar. They are all great, just pick some.

slcbbrown

My thoughts, based on having lived in New Orleans, Nashville, and, now, Dallas, would be to spend a little time in Nashville, skip Memphis, stay in the French Quarter as long as your trip allows, and stay a little bit in the DFW area. Unless you have very specific reasons to visit Memphis (Graceland, for example), it isn't a very tourist-friendly place. Dallas is more of a business town than any kind of tourist destination. Fort Worth is a bit more fun, but San Antonio is better than both, when it comes to being made for tourist visits.

dwdvagamundo

I would not skip Memphis unless you have no interest in music. And if you don't, why are you going to Nashville? We live in ATL and have made the fairly long drive to Memphis two or three times. It seems like we always find something new to do--right now, Stax Records is the top new thing.

I concur with the rest of slcbrown's advice: lots of time in New Orleans and San Antonio.

dwdvagamundo

Stonewall--see also the thread on "Driving from New Orleans to Nashville" which offers a few more ideas.

spirobulldog

I wouldn't skip Memphis either. I wouldn't skip the French Quarter, but it isn't that high on my lists of my favorite places i've been.

jent103

Unless you have very specific reasons to visit Memphis (Graceland, for example), it isn't a very tourist-friendly place.

Thousands of tourists go every year. Not sure why it wouldn't be tourist-friendly. Stick to tourist areas, be street-smart and you'll be fine. The civil rights museum and the Sun Studio tour are both great - I haven't been to Stax but it's on my list.

RoamEurope

Having lived in 3 of the 4 potential destinations (not Memphis but have spent a lot of time there), I'll share some very direct comments that likely will offend some. I would drop Dallas from the list and spend the most time in New Orleans, which is one of the two unique cities in the US (along with San Fran)in my opinion. Ok, you could make an argument for NYC and maybe Miami/Chicago but I digress!

New Orleans has great food, great music, French Quarter, the river, the architecture, the people, the booze, the Garden District, the nearby plantation homes, the history.

Nashville and Memphis share a state but are worlds apart. Nashville is new, glistening, progressive and Memphis is old, river town, largely beaten down (and, you could argue, more authentic as a result). If you love music, both have something to offer. If not, I don't view either as a particularly compelling vacation destination.

Dallas has no redeeming benefits as a tourist destination in my view, other than perhaps the grassy knoll/JFK thing. Really, I think you would have more fun staying home and doing laundry. It's an ugly Atlanta, a music-less Nashville, a Chicago suburb, an overgrown Columbus, Ohio.

If you insist on going to all 4, my advice would be to fly into New Orleans, then take a chep Southwest flight to Nashville and drive from there to Memphis to Dallas. To drive all 4, New Orleans is the outlier as mentioned above. My drive preference would beNew Orleans-Nashville-Memphis-Dallas because flights will be best leaving Dallas and I hate the Mississippi River delta drive between New Orleans and Memphis. None of those drives is particularly attractive-- just generic Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas interstates. If you had more time and for something different, you could drive the Natchez Trace from Nashville toward New Orleans. Good luck and sorry to those I might have offended!

bettyk

We visited both Memphis and Nashville last year and Memphis was not one of our favorites except for Graceland and Gus's Fried Chicken which was delicious.

We were accosted by several people offering to "help" us find what we were looking for, only to ask us for money. There was one crazy black man ranting about killing white people as we walked from our hotel down to Beale street!! Then, when we got to Beale, they had blockades up and were searching everybody for weapons.

In Nashville, no one hit us up for money and we never felt unsafe. There is a completely different vibe. Nashville is much more traditional and family friendly.

We are headed back to Nashville in October and from there will head down to New Orleans for several days. We will overnight in Memphis but mostly to indulge in some more of Gus's Fried Chicken.

And, I can't imagine why anyone would want to visit Dallas unless they had family or business there.

spirobulldog

I got to Dallas 4 or 5 times a year. This is because we live only 3 hours from there. It is great for food and shopping. There are some things to do Museums, Texas State Fair next month, Fort Worth, JFK. But, I agree--I don't think I would go out of my way to visit Dallas.

TennesseeGuy

I might make some people mad; but I've lived my whole life in Tn. (the east side). I've been to Memphis a lot on business. I consider it far and away the most dangerous place in the whole state! As others have said Dallas is "business" city more than tourist. San Antonio is much more scenic. Corpus Christi and the Gulf coast are nice. I also like the Gulf coast, from New Orleans east thru Mississippi and Alabama.

spirobulldog

Most tourist just go to Beale Street and Graceland. Usually heavily policed and I don't think there are that many crimes in those area compared to the rest of the city. I've never felt that uncomfortable. It might be wise to not be out after dark.

spirobulldog

You could say the same thing about New Orleans.

EilishMcNamee

Aww this is great guys!! I'll be flying from Dublin or Belfast and had planned this idea for myself and my hubby as an adventure for my 30th birthday next August We are very much into our music and thats why we had added the idea of Nashville to a NewYork short break, I will likely only have 10days tops to see and do everything so if it means dropping a city then it will just have to be!... Would love to do them all, I dont get to travel too much in the USA with my budding family here in Ireland I had thought of flying to Dallas, driving towards Nashville and flying from Nashville to New York to finish off the holiday, I can imagine from what I have googled and read up on the planned intinery that 2 full days in Dallas, 2 in Memphis and 3 in Nashville that I d be well entertained and exhausted!! lol I am trying to suss out if there are any planned country singer concerts for next year around my dates... 3rd week in August that I could maybe look forward til, but as yet there seems to be very little for that far in advance! @STONEWALL49 did you get anything sorted for yourself yet?? Im really looking forward to this hoilday!!!