Nashville Travel Guide
Travel guide to Nashville, Tennessee with comprehensive information about events, shopping, and major Nashville sporting events to help you enjoy your visit more.
Nashville Overview
Nashville is located slap bang in the middle of the USA, and is famously the home to both types of music, country and western. All in all, it is a pleasant enough city to visit, and Nashville has all the usual staples of urban America: friendly helpful people everywhere, shopping malls in the down town streets and in retail parks around the city centre; a handful of classical revival buildings like the state Capitol; and enough skyscrapers to constitute a pretty impressive skyline.
The thing that distinguishes Nashville is country and western music, and for fans of the genre, travelling to the city is the equivalent of a pilgrimage that they must undertake to hear a performance at the Grand Ole Opry. And perhaps even, stare open mouthed at Patsy Kline's rhinestone dotted shirts.
Nashville is not really what you would call a holiday destination, it is great for curious fans as a stop on the way to Disneyworld, and hearing the yodelling musicians will certainly make the children enjoy Mickey Mouse and the fairytale castles a bit more. The fact is though, that if you like Dolly Parton, you'll love Nashville, but if country music's not your thing, then you won't. It's that simple.
Top Nashville Attractions
All of the top attractions in Nashville are related in some way to country music, and many otherwise unimportant sights will hold great resonance for fans of the genre.
The main tourist area is around the so-called Music Valley, where you can visit Opryland USA along with many museums and galleries celebrating the Nashville sound. The famous Ryman Auditorium was the home of the Grand Ole Opry shows until they moved to their new home, and a visit to the theatre may leave you with a tear in your eye.
Shopping in Nashville
Nashville offers a great deal for shoppers who want to stock up on goods during their stay in the US, with the usual mix of high street names and big outlet stores on the outskirts of the city.
Because C&W music is so popular in the city, you find that there are a lot of record shops where you can buy fairly obscure titles, and of course, if you like tasselled shirts and cowboy boots, you'll be well served by some of the outfitters in Nashville.
Nashville Sporting Events
The two most famous national teams in Nashville are the Tennessee Titans and the Nashville Predators who play American football and ice hockey respectively. Provided that they are not playing one of the most famous teams in the country such as the Miami Dolphins, getting a ticket to a match is quite a simple proposition, and this is a great way of experiencing the razzamatazz of American sport.
Close to the city there is some great fishing on the rivers and lakes of Tennessee, and several golf courses to choose from if you fancy playing a round.