Memphis, Nashville & New Orleans

Am getting ready to organise my ' big ' holiday for next year.
There's a few of us, all with different places we really want to go!
So next year, southern states USA. I'm all about New Orleans, one girl ( country music fan!) All about Nashville, another fancies Memphis.
So I figured we could do all these and more over 2/3 weeks.
Just looking for anyone that has done similar. We are thinking maybe fly into Atlanta, hire a car and do a loop? We would be fairly flexible about dates and how long we stay each place.
So, any advice welcome!

Savman

Nashville is great fun with lots to see and do. Country music pretty much all day and all night.

Memphis is more about the Blues, outside of Beale Street there isn't much that would occupy longer than maybe 2-3 days. Civil Rights Museum is a must, as is Corkys or Rendevouz for RIBS!

New Orleans never fully recovered from the Hurricane, I didn't really like Bourbon Street it was quite tacky and sleazy. Your experience may vary of course, similar to Memphis in that both are cities rich in culture if you can look beyond the apparent poverty that is real life for a lot of people.

Still worth seeing all three places, the drive is long and boring but manageable, hence we flew New Orleans to Nashville for a small amount.

Andrew 83

I did the three last year over about ten days or so. Flew into New Orleans and out of Nashville. Had a brilliant time and would really recommend it.

As the previous poster said Bourbon Street seems pretty awful, it's like Templebar on steroids mixed with the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. I just totally avoided it though other than walking through it. The French quarter is lovely and you'll probably spend most of your time there. Food etc very good too. For me the main attraction of going was the music and there's loads of it and its excellent. Frenchmen Street is the main street to go to and there's a good few live music venues there you can just wander between. If you like the Treme TV show or New Orleans style brass bands generally there's lots of good ones that play on certain days each week that are well worth going to even if some are playing venues a good bit out. The Hot 8 play on Sundays in a place called the Howling Wolf, the Rebirth play on Tuesdays in a bar called the Maple Leaf (a good bit out but a great show and I'd highly recommend). I'd also highly recommend the Confederacy of Cruisers bike tour, it's expensive and you have to book in advance but you get a fantastic tour covering lots of the city. If you watched Treme you might also be interested in they have a little museum up in the Treme of old Mardi Gras costumes that the groups like the Indians in the show make each year which I enjoyed but might not mean much if you haven't seen the show. I was in New Orleans about four or five days but could easily have stayed longer, I think I'll probably go back in a few years. There's various festivals on during the year so it could be worth timing your visit for them. The biggest one is called I think Jazzfest but there was a smaller one called the French Quarter Festival which was on when I was there.

After finishing in New Orleans we hired a car. The drive to Memphis is pretty long so you'll prob need to break it up with a stop somewhere. We stayed overnight in a place called Natchez which is nothing to write home about but it was one of the richest cities in America around 1900 so it has loads of old big houses you can look around. We just used it as an overnight stop really.

We just did a couple of days in Memphis. Beale Street is good for a night out, there's a few good live music venues where we saw some good bands. As the last poster said the Civil Rights Museum is a must see and really well done, it's in the building Martin Luther King was assassinated in and his room and the front of the motel is preserved. I also thought Graceland was fantastic and a must visit (and I'm not even a big Elvis fan) so definitely do that. As I was only there a couple of days that's about all I did but there's a couple of other things you can do there, I wouldn't stay more than two or three days at most though. It definitely felt like quite a poor city and it feels very run down.

The drive from Memphis to Nashville is short enough and you can easily do it in one go. Nashville was a lot more hipster than I expected though also the kind of cowboy stuff you might expect. There's a good few good restaurants and bars and it seems quite a student city. On the main street there's loads of live music venues with different types of country music and they're well worth checking out, I saw some good bluegrass bands which I'd be more interested in than the all out country stuff. I went to the Johnny Cash museum which is fairly small but i found it reasonably good, you'd want to have an interest in him though. I spent maybe 3 or 4 days in Nashville and that was enough for me but it would depend on your interest in country music I think.

I thought it was a fantastic holiday and for the time you're looking to spend you could easily add on another city or two.

Thanks for that, loads of info!

cactusgal

Autumn is a lovely time to be down South, especially if you like Halloween. Spring is lovely, too. Summer is as hot as balls, I'd avoid (I grew up in the Deep South).
Eat lots and lots of barbeque!!!

stargazer 68

We were in NO in August and it was hot! But the other posters are right - Bourbon Street is just tacky with people drinking from morning to late night, ti**y bars etc. The road sweepers come out at the crack of dawn and just gush water all the way down the street to clean it and start again! We stayed at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel - the bar opens onto Bourbon Street but was at the other side of the hotel so you would never know.

Wisesmurf

i'll echo what the other people said it is a really good and easy trip. We did it as part of our honeymoon last year.

I made an earlier post about this:

We did New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Natchez and a few others

Nashville is such a party town and is really great craic if you can handle the honkey tonk and country music .Every bar has a really brilliant band and great atmosphere. Vanderbilt is a huge universtiy there so it's a big college town. We did a few tours/events here that I could recommend. We managed to get tickets for a live artist and storytelling session in the Bluebird cafe and it was the best moment of the whole trip imo.

Memphis is good, it's not the safest city by all accounts (we were told to watch our backs and given strict instructions where not to go by a bunch of bikers in another city) Having said that we didn't feel unsafe but Beale St isn't very big and gets a bit 'no go' beyond Coyote Ugly - you'll know when you see it. BB King's on Beale had some brilliant bands. If you're into Soul, blues or Elvis at all it's a must visit city. We did every possible tour here and I'd recommend doing everything. Some to note (graceland a given):

Gibson Factory
Stax Museum


New Orleans is well worth the trip and has a unique atmosphere. Was really humid when we were there (Sept) but it is a beautiful city and there is plenty to do. Walking between bars drinking on the streets is the done thing and there are literally hundreds of bars in the French quarter - and better ones outside it, you'll get tired of bourbon street.