Nashville Highlights

We hit all the popular sights in Nashville, from the honky tonks on Broadway to the Parthenon, and everything in between!

Our Airbnb in the Belmont neighborhood was a backyard apartment with a recording studio on the second floor, and it was built by Ben Folds! (As told to us by the current owner, anyways.) It was a great location — within walking distance to the shops and restaurants of 12 South and Hillsboro Village, and just a short drive to downtown.

Pro tips for visiting the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum: don’t miss the songwriter showcase or the tour at Hatch Show Print. We picked up our free tickets to the showcase when we arrived, and got to see a fantastic concert in the museum’s small auditorium, where the performers talked about songwriting and the stories behind their music. At Hatch Show Print, we got to see all the drawers of wooden type and the big blocks used for graphics, and we got to make our own mini poster!

If there’s one thing to do in Music City — it’s go to live shows! We saw a bunch of people play at different spots on Broadway. These shows are full of “up and coming” artists, which may sound like they’re amateurs, but every band/duo we saw perform was amazing. (While most places didn’t have a cover charge, be sure to bring small bills to tip the band!) And of course we visited the famous Grand Ole Opry, too.

Some other popular spots we visited were Centennial Park and the Frist Art Museum. One of our favorite stops was the Nissan factory in Smyrna — no pics allowed, but that tour was really cool! The factory is a mile long inside, and they took us on a tram ride to show all the different steps in building a car. There were so many robots!