Lower Broadway, Music Row and the road out to Lynchburg
Four blocks of Broadway, and the rest of Nashville behind them.
Which Opry night is worth the drive out to Opryland. What a distillery day in Lynchburg really costs. Reviews of every tour you can book in Nashville.
The Opry, the river, a dance floor and a mansion out west.
Four bookings a first trip to Nashville hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningDiscover Nashville City Tour with Entry to Ryman & Country Music Hall of FameOne loop of the city with the Ryman and the Hall of Fame built in. Do it on day one and the rest of the week plans itself.
02The river nightGeneral Jackson Showboat Lunch or Dinner Cruise in NashvilleDinner on a paddlewheeler working up the Cumberland, with the skyline coming back at you on the way down.
03The hour that pays offInstructor-Led Line Dancing Class with Souvenir VideoAn instructor, a wooden floor and enough of a two-step to hold your own on Broadway later.
04The day out westBelle Meade Guided Mansion Tour with Complimentary Wine TastingA Belle Meade mansion tour that finishes in the tasting room. Twenty minutes from downtown and a century away from it.
Whiskey, a brewery bench or a guided crawl. Pick how Nashville pours.
More of this city is booked after dark than in daylight. Three shapes of evening, what it costs to get in the door, and which end of town each one runs in.
Nashville splits into six nights out, and they are not all downtown.
Barrel houses in Tennessee whiskey country, the studios and stages that made the records, a food scene that starts with hot chicken, the old alleys after dark, an open-top bus for the geography, and a bar crawl for everything else.
Nashville is flat, spread out and best covered on something with wheels.
Downtown, Music Row, the Gulch and Germantown do not join up on foot. An open-top deck, a trolley or a six-seat golf cart turns the gaps into the good part.
The Ryman, Studio B and a Saturday night at the Opry.
Three rooms carry the whole story. A tabernacle with church pews that became the Mother Church of Country Music, a Music Row studio where Elvis cut more than two hundred sides, and the Opry House out at Briley Parkway where the circle of Ryman oak is set into the stage.
- 1Grand Ole Opry Show Admission Ticketfrom $61
- 2Discover Nashville City Tour with Entry to Ryman & Country Music Hall of Famefrom $103
- 3Grand Ole Opry House Guided Backstage Tour in Nashvillefrom $39
The days out Nashville sells the most of.
Every Nashville tour we have reviewed →The tours Nashville books more of than anything else, and what puts each one at the top.
1
Nashville Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tour
Ride Nashville’s 13-stop Old Town Trolley loop with live commentary, music, and views of more than 100 sights. Start downtown or at Marathon Village, hop off for the Parthenon, Belmont Mansion, Broadway, Ryman Auditorium, and more. Guides such as Sam, CB, and Spaghetti keep the ride lively.
From · $53
Read our review →
2
Food Tour with 5+ Tastings of Local Delicacies
from $98
3
Best of Nashville City Sightseeing Tour on Double Decker Bus
from $34
4
Explore the City of Nashville Sightseeing Tour by Golf Cart
from $55
5
Grand Ole Opry Show Admission Ticket
from $61
6
Downtown Nashville Public Party Tractor 21+ Only
from $44
7
Discover Nashville City Tour with Entry to Ryman & Country Music Hall of Fame
from $103
8
Grand Ole Opry House Guided Backstage Tour in Nashville
from $39
Hot chicken is the headline. Nashville eats a lot better than that.
The cayenne paste that made Prince’s famous is one stop on a long walk. Meat-and-three plates, biscuits the size of a fist, smoked brisket in East Nashville and a doughnut counter that opens before the buses run.
- 1Food Tour with 5+ Tastings of Local Delicaciesfrom $98
- 2Belle Meade Guided Mansion Tour with Complimentary Wine Tastingfrom $33
- 3Walking Food & Drink Tour of Downtown Nashville
What a day out in Nashville actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best ones come in under the price of two rounds on Broadway.
Walking tours, museum and Ryman admissions, ghost walks and the shorter crawls.
The full days: distillery runs, open-top loops with entries, dinner cruises and the golf cart tours.
Helicopter time over the bend in the river, private drivers and the long day out to Lynchburg.
Three things that only happen in Nashville.
Live country music runs somewhere in every American city. A four-block strip playing it free from ten in the morning, a tractor-drawn bar on a public road, and a distillery in a county that will not sell you a drink do not.
The honky tonk mile
Four blocks between 5th and the river hold a couple of dozen bars, and almost all of them run live music from late morning until closing with no cover charge. Bands play for the tip bucket, which is why the sets are short and the playing is hard. Tootsies, Robert’s Western World and Legends sit within a hundred yards of each other, and a guided walk gets you into the ones with the players rather than the ones with the queue.
- 1Nashville’s Wildest Honky Tonk Public Party Bus (21+)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,305 reviews
- 2Nashville’s Honky-Tonk Walking Sightseeing Pub Crawl★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 305 reviews
- 3Music City Food, Drink, Sightseeing Walking Tour along Broadway★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 232 reviews
The party tractor
Nashville is the only city where a farm tractor towing a licensed open-air bar is a normal thing to meet at a red light. Pedal taverns, party buses and tractors all fall under the same city rules, and every one of them is over-21 with a driver who is not drinking. They run a loop of downtown and the Gulch, and they are far more fun to be on than to be stuck behind.
- 1Downtown Nashville Public Party Tractor 21+ Only★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,480 reviews
- 2Nashville’s Wildest Honky Tonk Public Party Bus (21+)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,305 reviews
- 3Nashville Party Bus with Drag Queen Hosts & Live Performances★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 357 reviews
Whiskey in a dry county
Jack Daniel’s has been filtering through sugar maple charcoal at Lynchburg since 1866, in a county that voted itself dry and stayed that way. The distillery can sell you a commemorative bottle but the town cannot sell you a drink, which is one of the better facts in American whiskey. It is about ninety minutes down I-24 and the bus days make a proper outing of it.
- 1Nashville to Jack Daniel’s Distillery Bus Tour + Whiskey Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,906 reviews
- 2Nashville to Jack Daniel’s: BBQ Lunch, Live Music & Trivia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 195 reviews
- 3Jack Daniel’s Distillery Tour, Tasting and Lynchburg Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 179 reviews
Four Nashville bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted from a bar stool the night before. These four run on show calendars, timed studio buses and a rotor that only turns in decent weather.
- 01Grand Ole Opry Show Admission TicketThe Opry runs to a schedule and the good seats near the circle go first. Winter runs move back downtown to the Ryman, which sells out faster still.
- 02Nashville RCA Studio B & Country Music Hall of Fame Ticket ComboStudio B can only be reached on the timed bus from the Hall of Fame, and each departure is capped. There is no walk-up.
- 03Nashville to Jack Daniel’s Distillery Bus Tour + Whiskey TastingsThe Lynchburg buses leave once a morning and come back late. Miss the departure and there is no second run that day.
- 04Helicopter Tour of Downtown NashvilleFlights are weather-called and the aircraft seats three or four. A cancelled slot gets rebooked, not squeezed in.
When Broadway is shoulder to shoulder, go anywhere else.
From Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, roughly April to October, the four blocks between 5th and the river are packed and the pavements move at a shuffle. Add a June festival week and it is worse. The answer is not to skip it, it is to take Broadway early and give the rest of the day to the parts of Nashville nobody queues for.
By the room, the stage or the barrel house
By kind of day, or kind of night
Broadway, Music Row, the river and one day out of town.
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