Top 10 Things to Do in Nashville

Nashville has transformed into one of the fastest-growing and most visited cities in the United States, attracting visitors for its music heritage, food scene, entertainment district, and surrounding Tennessee landscape. It is a city with more depth than its bachelorette-party reputation suggests, and a well-planned visit can include both the honky-tonks of Lower Broadway and genuine cultural, culinary, and historical experiences. These top 10 are the experiences most worth building a Nashville trip around.

1. Walk Lower Broadway and the Honky-Tonks

Lower Broadway is the heart of Nashville’s live music scene and one of the most distinctive entertainment streets in the country. The honky-tonks — Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Robert’s Western World, Legends Corner, and others — run live country music from opening until closing, and admission is almost always free. The performers range from talented touring musicians to genuine up-and-coming artists. Daytime visits are significantly more manageable than weekend nights, which can be overwhelming.

2. Visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is one of America’s best music museums — seriously curated, historically comprehensive, and housed in a building that is architecturally interesting in its own right. The permanent collection covers country music history from its folk roots through every subsequent era with artifacts, recordings, and installations that are engaging even for people who aren’t devoted country fans. Allow at least two hours.

3. Tour the Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is the longest-running radio broadcast in American history, having aired since 1925. The classic venue, Ryman Auditorium, still hosts Opry performances (as well as concerts across genres) and is worth touring even when there’s no show — the building’s history as a tabernacle-turned-music-venue gives it an atmosphere that is genuinely singular. The modern Opry House in Opryland hosts larger Opry performances and offers backstage tours.

4. Eat Nashville Hot Chicken

Nashville hot chicken — fried chicken coated in a paste of cayenne and spices, served on white bread with pickles — is one of the great regional American foods. Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, the original, has been serving it since the 1940s. Hattie B’s has expanded to multiple locations and is the most tourist-accessible option. The heat levels range from “plain” to “shut the cluck up” (genuinely hazardous), and ordering medium or hot on your first visit is usually the right call.

5. Explore the Germantown Neighborhood

Germantown, just north of downtown, is one of Nashville’s most pleasant walkable neighborhoods — Victorian architecture, craft cocktail bars, excellent restaurants (Rolf and Daughters, Henrietta Red), specialty coffee, and a pace distinct from the downtown entertainment district. An afternoon walk through Germantown combined with dinner is one of the most satisfying non-touristy Nashville experiences available.

6. Visit the Parthenon in Centennial Park

Nashville has a full-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon — built for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897 and made permanent in 1931. Inside is a 42-foot statue of Athena, the largest indoor sculpture in the Western Hemisphere. Centennial Park surrounding it is a pleasant urban park good for a morning walk. The Parthenon, improbably and inexplicably located in a Tennessee park, is one of Nashville’s genuinely strange and wonderful attractions.

7. Visit the Johnny Cash Museum

The Johnny Cash Museum is one of Nashville’s best music-focused experiences outside the Country Music Hall of Fame, with a concentrated collection focused on Cash’s life, career, and enormous cultural legacy. It’s smaller than the Hall of Fame but deeply curated, and its location on Broadway makes it easy to combine with a broader downtown visit. Fans of Cash will find it essential; general visitors will find his story — the complexity of it, not just the icon — genuinely compelling.

8. Take a Day Trip to Franklin

Franklin, about 20 miles south of Nashville, is one of the best preserved Civil War battlefields in the South (the Battle of Franklin, 1864) combined with a well-maintained historic downtown with good restaurants, shops, and the Carter House (a historic home that served as a Union headquarters during the battle). It’s a half-day to full-day trip that provides historical context and a change of pace from urban Nashville.

9. Catch Live Music Beyond the Honky-Tonks

Nashville’s live music scene extends far beyond Lower Broadway. The Bluebird Cafe hosts the songwriter rounds — intimate performances where songwriters play originals and tell the stories behind them — that are considered among the most authentic Nashville musical experiences available. Mercy Lounge and Marathon Music Works host touring acts across genres. Grimey’s record store regularly hosts in-store performances. The depth of Nashville’s music scene rewards exploration beyond the obvious.

10. Spend a Morning at the Frist Art Museum

The Frist Art Museum is housed in Nashville’s former main post office — a beautiful Art Deco building from the 1930s — and presents traveling exhibitions of genuinely high quality. Nashville visitors who haven’t considered the Frist are often surprised by the quality of what’s showing. It’s also centrally located and combines well with a walk through the nearby SoBro neighborhood. Nashville’s reputation as a music city can obscure the quality of its other cultural institutions, and the Frist is the best argument that there is more to the city’s cultural life than Broadway’s neon.