Hi! We have 9 days and want to explore the Deep South. We will be flying in from NYC on 1st May and have to fly back to NYC on 10th May.

I know it isn't a lot of time + it's our first time to the US so I have no idea where to begin!

Details: we prefer charming small towns to big cities. Love scenic drives. Love small pubs and bars and cafes with great music. Love food, especially spicy food (so excited for southern comfort food!!!). Want a trip that isn't overpacked and rushed.

Problem: based on the map, it seems like we will only have time to do (1) Nashville-Memphis-MS drive-NOLA, OR (2) charleston-savannah-NOLA. NOLA is a must see for us!

What do you guys recommend? Is there a better way of combining them? E.g. was hoping NOLA-charleston combi.

We do plan on driving so we'll fly into one city, rent a car and drive the rest of the way.

One way to avoid a lot of driving would be to fly to Atlanta and then take the Amtrak Crescent from Atlanta to New Orleans. You can drive a rental car from New Orleans to Memphis and then Nashville.
Another stop you could make on the Crescent route would be Birmingham Alabama.

As for spicy food, that depends on what you feel is spicy. You are more likely to find that fried foods is a large part of southern comfort food. Also, "grits" can vary wildly in quality - ranging from tasteless runny glop to something marvelous modules of goodness. A really well-executed bowl of shrimp and grits is memorable.

Shrimp and grits with poached egg

If you are interested only in music and food, then I think the combination of New Orleans and Nashville is a good one; alternatively, you could combine New Orleans with Memphis, but I don't think you have time for all three. It's a long drive between the cities, so I'd plan on a couple of additional destinations in between, one going and come coming back.

If you choose Memphis, then you should go via Jackson and try to see a couple of Civil War Battlefields (Vicksburg is not far off this route). I'd also stop off in Oxford, which is a lovely, historic university town in northern Mississippi.

If you choose Nashville, then I'd go via Meridian and Birmingham (which some of the South's best restaurants these days, including the James Beard Award-winning Highlands Bar & Grill (expensive but worth it). If you are interested in the American Civil Rights movement, then a one-day detour to Montgomery to see the extremely moving Legacy Museum and Memorial to Peace and Justice is worth it. The city also has great bars and restaurants and music. I've been to Capital Oyster Bar, which is quite off the beaten path on the river but very fun.

Mobile offers a much calmer alternative to New Orleans. It doesn't have the French Quarter, but it does have a more low-key, somewhat French-influenced culture and great seafood and proximity to great beaches on Mobile Bay. It could be on either itinerary.

But if you are looking for the "south" I don't think you'll find it as much in New Orleans as you might in Atlanta, which also has great culture, music, bars, and food. You could go there, and do a big circle to Nashville via Chattanooga and back through Birmingham on the return. To me that would be a more quintessentially southern experience. You don't get that in New Orleans, to be honest, though you get it in Baton Rouge or some of the other cities in Louisiana.

If you do go to New Orleans (and personally, I'd choose NO over Atlanta), I highly recommend a day in the bayou - Lafayette/Breaux Bridge is a good choice. Visit a plantation or two, take a swamp tour, listen to some music.

Oh, YEAH. NOLA far over Atlanta. And Charleston and Savannah over Atlanta!! LOL
I think Doug Stallings has pretty much nailed it for time management--and expectations of "southern food". NOLA is a class by itself.

i

Google the places on this map - https://goo.gl/maps/QnZKQe9Aij3WiyYL9

This would start in Memphis and end in New Orleans, via the Mississippi Delta, Vicksburg and Natchez, with a couple of antebellum mansions and plantations thrown in for good measure. Highlights would include the Delta Blues Museum and Abe's BBQ in Clarksdale, then down to Rosedale and Vicksburg, sticking as close as possible to the Mississippi, not US 61. Don't sell your souls at the Crossroads of the Blues, across from Abe's, even though you might think about it for an order of Abe's tamales on top of the BBQ ribs.

See the Vicksburg battlefield with the florid monuments erected by the Confederate states, stop at Port Gibson, the town "too beautiful to burn" (by Ulysses Grant) and Natchez.

Load up the car's CD player or a flash drive for the USB port with R & B, blues, gospel, Dixieland and Zydeco, and groove to the heartbeat of America's musical heritage.