Looking to step outside the Music City for a day? These easy trips from Nashville serve up everything from small-town charm to natural beauty—perfect for a quick change of pace.
Highlights:
Unique Day Trips from Nashville:
1. Mammoth Cave National Park (1 hour 20 min)
Rating: ★★★★★
Deep under the layers and layers of limestone in central Kentucky is an enormous cave, in fact the largest cave system in the world – Mammoth Cave. Mammoth Cave National Park was established in 1941 to protect this strange and magical place.
It is a great place to spend a couple of hours if you are an explorer at heart and are not afraid of dark, enclosed spaces. Only about 405 miles of the cave passages and chambers are explored. The rest is still a mystery and is being discovered bit by bit every year.
The National Park Service offers several cave tours to visitors. These well-lit tours range from one to six hours and visitors can see some of the most interesting features of the system, such as Frozen Niagara, Grand Avenue, and Fat Man's Misery.
Some guests prefer tours that are lit only by their own lamps, and there are "wild" tours, which venture a bit away from the paved parts of the cave into dusty dark tunnels and muddy passages.
1 Mammoth Cave Parkway, Mammoth Cave National Park, KY 42259, Phone: 270-758-2180
2. Stones River National Battlefield (35 min)
Taking a bike ride or hike through the 570 acres of brilliant green Stones River National Battlefield park is a great way to get some fresh air while learning about one of the pivotal moments in United States history.
Not even 30 miles from Nashville, along the Stone River, is the site of one of the key battles in the American Civil War, the battle that the Union won but which was known as one of the bloodiest conflicts during that war.
The park preserves only a fraction of the land over which the battle was fought. Within the park you can see part of Fortress Rosecrans, the largest enclosed earth fort from the Civil War.
The Stones River National Cemetery is also part of the park, with 6,850 interments of which 2,562 have been identified.
Just outside the cemetery is the Hazen's Brigade Monument, erected in 1863, the oldest American Civil War monument still standing in its original site. Park rangers and trained volunteers offer a series of interesting of talks, walks, tours and history reenactments throughout the year.
3501 Old Nashville Hwy, Murfreesboro, TN 37129-3094, Phone: 615-893-9501
3. Cumberland Caverns (1 hour 35 min)
Cumberland Caverns is a show cave located in McMinnville, discovered in 1810 by the land surveyor Aaron Higgenbotham.
Higgenbotham’s Cave quickly became a favorite spot for local adventurers in the 19th century and was open to the public in 1956.
Today there are more than 32 miles of caves and passageways, magnificent underground rock formations, underground waterfalls, dark pools and some spectacularly large underground rooms.
Tours of the caves include a regular daytime walking tour, spelunking tours for more adventurous types, overnight tours, if you are really looking for a thrill, and educational field trips for students.
The caves are also popular venue for unusual weddings, birthday and other parties. A monthly concert called Bluegrass Underground is also held in the Cumberland Caverns, in the cave's Volcano Room.
1437 Cumberland Caverns Rd, McMinnville, TN 37110-4673, Phone: 931-668-4396
Quick McMinnville, TN weekend itinerary:
Where to Eat: | |
Stay: | Hampton Inn McMinnville, The Inn at Tree City, BW Signature Collection |
See & Do: | Pepper Branch Park, The Park Theater, Milner Recreation Center |
4. Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area (1 hour 40 min)
Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is a 170,000-acre playground in Western Kentucky and Tennessee, one of the largest tracts of undeveloped forest on the East Coast.
Located on a peninsula between Kentucky and Barkley lakes, the area consists of dense forests, miles of wetlands, and open lands.
With 300 miles of unspoiled shoreline, the park provides wonderful settings for picnicking, camping, hiking, boating, fishing, water sports and wildlife observation.
There are 240 different species of birds living in the park at least part of the year, including the hummingbirds which migrate in August. There are 500 miles of diverse trails for biking, hiking, horseback riding and off-road riding.
238 Visitor Center Drive, Golden Pond, KY 42211, Phone: 800-525-7077
5. Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek (2 hour 10 min)
The Lincoln family lived on 30 acres of the 228 acre Knob Creek Farm in Hodgenville, Kentucky from the time Abraham was two and a half until 1816 when the family moved to Spencer County, Indiana.
Lincoln had fond memories of his life on the Knob Creek farm as the place where he learned to talk, run errands such as gathering wood for fires and carrying water.
He remembered a stone house he had passed on his way to Hodgen's Mill; the stream where he fished, and the hills where he picked berries. The original house in which the Lincoln family lived was torn down in 1870 and the cabin that is now part of the park was reconstructed in 1931 on the original site.
Some of the furnishings in the cabin are original antiques donated by families of early settlers. The Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek is one of the best places to visit in Tennessee for history buffs.
Route 31E, Knob Creek Farm, 7120 Bardstown Rd, Hodgenville, KY 40051, Phone: 270-358-3137
Romantic Day Trips from Nashville:
6. Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park (2 hours 10 min)
Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, located on the slopes of Lookout Mountain, is shared between northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee, and is established to preserve the original sites of two major American Civil War battles: The Battle of Chickamauga and the Chattanooga Campaign.
These two battlefields offer exceptional opportunity for studying the two great armies as they encountered many military obstacles such as forests, steep mountain slopes, open fields, and fast streams.
Strategically placed observation towers located on the Chickamauga Battlefield, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, offer observers and students the opportunity to imagine the scale of the grand campaign that extended 150 miles in front of them.
Lafayette Road (1-mile south of Hwy 2 & Hwy 27 intersection), Fort Oglethorpe, GA 30742, Phone: 423-821-7786
7. US Space and Rocket Museum (1 hour 50 min)
The US Space and Rocket Museum celebrates the United States space program, showcasing rockets, artifacts and achievements.
One of the largest space museums in the world, it opened its doors in 1970.
The visitors can see original Apollo Program hardware, enjoy interactive science exhibits, go into the Space Shuttle, observe various Army rocketry and aircraft.
The Center has over 1,500 permanent space exploration and rocketry artifacts, as well as a range of various related exhibits. The center occupies a portion of the Redstone Arsenal land next to Huntsville Botanical Garden.
The U.S. Space Camp offers interested participants a more in-depth exposure to the American space program through the use of simulators, training exercises and lectures.
1 Tranquility Base, Huntsville, AL 35805-3371, Phone: 800-637-7223
8. Dunbar Cave State Park
A truly remarkable destination, the Dunbar Cave State Park features 144 acres of historic and culturally significant land not just for the state of Tennessee, but for the whole Eastern Woodland area.
It is best known for being the home of significant prehistoric cave art dating back to the 14th Century.
The cave art was created by Mississippian Native Americans who called the Red River home.
The Dunbar Cave is largely believed to have been a sacred place to the natives who believed it to be the gateway to the underworld.
Visitors can explore these cave markings and drawings via guided tours from May through September.
401 Old Dunbar Cave Road, Clarksville, Tennessee 37043; Phone: 931-648-5526
Family Day Trips from Nashville:
9. Loretta Lynn's Ranch (1 hour 10 min Day Trip from Nashville)
Unless you are a big country music fan, you will probably discover fascinating Loretta Lynn's Ranch by accident while traveling through Tennessee.
The 18,000 square foot Museum in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee was a ranch and home of the legendary country music icon.
She created a museum by collecting a huge number of memorabilia, personal items and awards from her illustrious career, as well as personal objects from her many entertainer friends.
The museum offers self-guided tours, and you can also visit other nearby structures such as Frontier Homestead, the Native American Artifact Museum, Grist Mill Museum and Loretta’s Fan & Doll Museum.
The ranch offers diverse accommodations, from an RV park to tents and rustic cabins. There is a large pool for the guests, fishing, paddle boats and canoeing , and if you are lucky, nightly entertainment in the ranch theatre.
44 Hurricane Mills Rd, Hurricane Mills, TN 37078-2147, Phone: 931-296-7700
10. Rock Island State Park (1 hour 35 min)
Located at the confluence of the Caney Fork, Collins and Rocky Rivers, on the headwaters of Center Hill Lake, Rock Island State Park is a ruggedly beautiful 883-acre park popular for hiking, exploring, swimming, fishing and kayaking.
One of the most fascinating features of the park is the Caney Fork Gorge, just below Great Falls Dam, which offers some of the most scenic views of the Eastern Highland Rim.
Hiking trails lead past by Great Falls, a 30-foot cascading waterfall that drops below the historic 19th century textile mill.
The Caney Fork River Gorge is famous for its spectacular overlooks, deep pools, waterfalls and narrow limestone paths. The whitewater sections of the gorge are popular among professional kayakers from all over the world.
The Center Hill Lake also has a natural sandy beach and boating access. Tennessee State Park cabins are popular accommodation for luxurious camping. There are also two campgrounds.
82 Beach Rd, Rock Island, TN 38581-4200, Phone: 931-686-2471
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