Tennessee runs on music and mountains, from Nashville stages to Smoky Mountain towns. Plan your trip here.
Nashville’s greatest asset, live music, is also its cheapest: it pours out of honky-tonk doorways along Broadway, from buskers, and from free rounds at the songwriter bars long before anyone charges a cover. Spend a little time where locals go and a Nashville trip costs far less than the neon strip suggests.
Pigeon Forge is better known for pancake houses and theme parks than tasting rooms. Its wineries and distilleries offer a quieter change of pace, with locally made wines and spirits that reflect the region’s traditions more than Napa’s.
Gatlinburg runs on two registers a couple can choose between: the neon strip of mini-golf and pancake houses, and the national park at its back door, quiet trails and mountain overlooks minutes away. The town works best for a weekend that swings between the two rather than committing to either.
Pigeon Forge’s museums are gloriously improbable, a Titanic replica, a crime museum, a Bible collection, all in one Smoky Mountain tourist town. They’re the rainy-day answer and a break from hiking, kitschy on the surface but often better put together than they have any right to be.