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Things to Do in Nashville, Tennessee

Broadway honky-tonks are only the start — Music City also means the Hall of Fame, hot chicken counters and East Nashville's songwriter rooms.

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Last updated: September 2026

Nashville, Tennessee — photograph from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Quintin Soloviev / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Nashville is the capital of Tennessee, spread along a bend of the Cumberland River in the middle of the state, and it's long branded itself Music City for its outsized role in country music and the broader recording industry. Downtown's Broadway strip of honky-tonks with live bands spilling onto the sidewalk is the most famous image of the city, but Nashville is also a genuine state capital with a large healthcare and higher-education economy behind the tourist-facing music scene.

The city has grown fast over the past two decades, adding new neighborhoods of restaurants and breweries in areas like East Nashville, Germantown, and the Gulch, while still anchoring its identity in the older institutions — the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, and the Country Music Hall of Fame — that built its reputation. It draws musicians and songwriters chasing a break, bachelorette parties drawn to the nightlife, and history-minded visitors interested in the Civil War and civil rights sites scattered around the region.

Nashville rewards travelers who like live music paired with genuinely good food, from hot chicken to meat-and-three plate lunches, and who don't mind a downtown that can feel like a nonstop party on weekend nights. It's also large enough to have quieter, more residential corners for those who want a break from Broadway's crowds.

Quick facts

Population
689,447 (2020 census)
County
Davidson County (consolidated city-county government)
State
Tennessee
Country
United States
Founded
1779; incorporated 1806; consolidated with the county in 1963
Elevation
554 feet
Nicknames
Music City, Athens of the South
Setting
River capital city on a bend of the Cumberland River
Nearby cities
Chattanooga, Knoxville, Louisville
Best known for
Country music, honky-tonks, and Nashville hot chicken

Things to Do

  • Ryman Auditorium

    The former home of the Grand Ole Opry, a beautifully preserved 1892 church-turned-theater still hosting concerts with legendary acoustics.

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  • Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

    An extensive museum tracing country music's history through instruments, costumes, and recordings, anchoring downtown's museum district.

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  • Grand Ole Opry House

    The current home of the long-running Opry radio show, staging weekly performances by a rotating mix of country legends and rising stars.

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  • Broadway honky-tonks

    The strip of multi-story bars with live bands playing from open windows is Nashville's signature scene, free to wander with a drink in hand.

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  • Belle Meade Historic Site

    A restored antebellum plantation and former thoroughbred horse farm on the edge of the city, offering tours into a darker side of the region's history.

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  • The Parthenon

    A full-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon in Centennial Park, built for an 1897 exposition and now housing an art museum.

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Eat Local

  • Prince's Hot Chicken

    The originator of Nashville hot chicken, now serving its fiery fried chicken tradition from a Nolensville Pike location and a stall inside Assembly Food Hall.

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  • Marathon Village food and drink

    The converted 1900s auto factory holds a distillery, coffee and small kitchens, and it is the rare Nashville food stop with genuine industrial architecture attached.

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  • Hattie B's Hot Chicken

    A newer but hugely popular hot chicken spot with several spice levels, credited with helping bring the dish to national attention.

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  • Loveless Cafe

    A longtime roadside institution on the edge of town famous for biscuits and preserves, a common stop for those heading toward the Natchez Trace Parkway.

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  • Biscuit Love

    A modern Southern brunch spot built around inventive biscuit dishes, part of the wave of newer restaurants in the Gulch and 12South.

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Shopping & Markets

  • Nashville Farmers' Market

    A permanent market near the Bicentennial Capitol Mall selling produce, local goods, and prepared food from small vendors year-round.

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  • 12South neighborhood

    A strip of independent boutiques, record shops, and murals, including the well-known 'I Believe in Nashville' wall.

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  • The Nashville Flea Market

    A long-running monthly market at the fairgrounds with hundreds of vendors selling antiques, crafts, and collectibles.

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  • Marathon Village

    A former early-1900s automobile factory converted into shops, studios, and a distillery, worth a stop for its industrial architecture alone.

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Hidden Gems

  • Jefferson Street Sound Museum

    A small, community-run museum on the North Nashville corridor where Jimi Hendrix, Etta James and Little Richard all played. It is now on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail and still missed by almost everyone who comes for Broadway.

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  • Nashville City Cemetery

    Opened in 1822 and the city's oldest, now a Metro park that hosts community events among the graves of Nashville's founding generation.

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  • Travellers Rest

    John Overton's 1799 house on the south side is the oldest historic house museum open to the public in Nashville, and far quieter than the better-known estates.

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  • Bluebird Cafe

    A tiny suburban listening room where songwriters, not always performers themselves, play new original material in near silence from the audience.

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  • Fort Negley

    The remains of a Union-built Civil War fortification on a hill south of downtown, with interpretive trails and skyline views.

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Nature & Outdoors

  • Cumberland River Greenway

    A paved riverside trail system good for running or biking with views back toward downtown's skyline.

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  • Percy Warner Park

    A large wooded park on the city's west side with miles of hiking and horse trails and stone bridges built during the Depression.

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  • Radnor Lake State Park

    A quiet, protected natural area within the city limits popular for birdwatching and an easy loop trail around the lake.

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A little history

Nashville was founded in 1779 by James Robertson and John Donelson as Fort Nashborough, a settlement of Cumberland Compact pioneers named for Revolutionary War general Francis Nash. It became the Tennessee state capital in 1843 and grew into a river and rail hub through the nineteenth century, serving as a key Confederate supply center before falling to Union forces in 1862 and becoming an important occupied city for the rest of the Civil War.

The city's music identity took shape in the twentieth century, starting with the 1925 launch of the WSM radio barn dance that became the Grand Ole Opry, still broadcasting today as the longest-running radio program in U.S. history. By the 1950s and 60s, Nashville's recording studios along Music Row had developed the polished "Nashville Sound," and the city's reputation as the commercial center of country music was firmly established.

Nashville was also a significant site in the civil rights movement, home to a series of student-led sit-ins in 1960 organized in part by future congressman John Lewis and other activists trained at Nashville's historically Black colleges. In recent decades the city has diversified economically beyond music into healthcare management and finance, fueling rapid population growth and a construction boom that has reshaped its downtown skyline.

If you only have a day in Nashville

  1. Morning

    Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

    Go at opening; it fills up by midday and it is the one museum that makes the rest of the city legible.

  2. Lunch

    Prince's Hot Chicken

    The original, running since 1945 and still in the family. Order a step milder than you think.

  3. Afternoon

    Jefferson Street Sound Museum

    The other side of Nashville's music history, ten minutes from downtown and run by the people who lived it.

  4. Late afternoon

    Ryman Auditorium

    Worth the daytime tour even if you are not seeing a show that night.

  5. Evening

    Broadway, or the Bluebird Cafe if you booked ahead

    The Bluebird sells out weeks out; Broadway never needs a reservation.

Good to know

  • Downtown is walkable, but weekend nights on Broadway are a crowd, and downtown parking is expensive and scarce. Stay outside the core and come in.
  • The Bluebird Cafe and the Grand Ole Opry both need tickets well in advance; the Opry is out by the airport, not downtown.
  • The best food is mostly out of the tourist core — East Nashville, Nolensville Pike and 12South are all short drives.
  • Arnold's Country Kitchen, the meat-and-three most guides still list, closed in 2023. Don't plan a lunch around it.

Explore more of Nashville

This guide highlights some of the places that help define Nashville. There is plenty more around it — restaurants, hidden gems, history, events, shopping and outdoor places — waiting in the live explorer, sorted by distance from wherever you are.

Explore Nashville in Nearbyly

Places in Nashville

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