We’re just back from an amazing two weeks spent driving from New Orleans to Nashville, hitting as many cool spots as we could along the way! Route 61 is the Blues Route and the area is known for being the birthplace of blues music. The live music we heard along the way was unreal and each town/city was so unique, that it ended up being one of the most interesting trips we’ve been on! We were a group of five friends and here’s what we got up to…
New Orleans
We stayed in Hotel Provincial, right in the heart of the French Quarter. The location was perfect, air-con was good and best of all, there was a small pool so we could cool down in the evenings! The first morning, we went on a walking food tour of the area. It gave us a sense of the city, we got lots of recommendations for restaurants and the food was yum! That day we also bought a ticket for the traditional, old-style tram and went to the Garden District. The houses in the area were gorgeous, but I wouldn’t bother getting off and stopping because there wasn’t a whole pile going on there.
The next day, we drove out of the city to Airboat Adventures. We chose the large airboat tour and it was ideal – not worth paying extra for a smaller boat. If you are doing it, make sure you choose the airboat as the pontoon boat looked fairly boring! The trip was class – we saw (and fed!) loads of alligators, plus it was really cool to explore the swamps after reading Where the Crawdads Sing!
The French Quarter is a beautiful area of the city – exactly what you would expect the houses in New Orleans to look like, with all the ornate balconies/galleries and voodoo shops! We didn’t have time to go on a voodoo tour, but would have loved it! We did however go on a two hour sailing trip on the Steamboat Natchez – it was just ok, I wouldn’t bother doing it if I were you! But the outside was pretty to look at, so just take some pics of the boat from the street instead!
Bourbon Street is the main street for busy nightlife in the area. The Carousal Bar is worth stopping off for a drink at! Live bands everywhere and so busy, especially at the weekends. We also went to Frenchmen Street which was more laid back and had a really nice vibe – The Spotted Cat had great blues bands! My favourite restaurant of New Orleans was Paladar 511…delicious!
Natchez
About an hour from New Orleans was the Oak Valley Plantation. Worth a stop if, like us, you’ve never seen a plantation before. Learning about the history of slavery, we were shocked that it only ended 155 years ago.
When we arrived at Natchez, we were surprised by how big it was. This was one of the very few times that the reviews on Booking.com let me down. We stayed at the Guesthouse Historic Mansion and there was something wrong with all of rooms. The reviews kept mentioning the amazing breakfast – but I got moldy bread and no apology! I wouldn’t recommend it!
There was one area of Natchez that was really fab. Go to The Camp restaurant right before sunset, grab a seat outside on the patio, eat and watch the sun set over the the Mississippi river. Stunning! Then head into the pub next door called Under the Hill. Full of character and everyone was really friendly. We chatted to loads of people by the end of the night and Trevor even got up and sang a song with the band!
Clarksdale
On our way to Clarksdale, we visited the Kermit the Frog Museum (absolutely tiny!) and The Grammy Museum (absolutely massive!). The Grammy Museum in particular was excellent! Arriving to Clarksdale was eerie! Most of the buildings were abandoned or in a state of disrepair. There wasn’t a soul on the street and when we arrived at the unexpectedly gorgeous hotel, we checked in using codes, so we didn’t even see anyone there either! It was like the whole town just got up and left! Perfect place to film a zombie movie!! We did manage to find somewhere to eat dinner and the local bar was part-owned by Morgan Freeman.
There’s a story that the blues legend Robert Johnson sold his soul to devil at a certain crossroads here in Clarksdale. There is a large sign in the middle of the busiest road claiming it was the crossroads, but we found out from a local the ‘true’ location, which was a five minute drive out of town. Not sure what to believe, but it was fun checking it out anyway!
We had breakfast before we left in the Blueberry cafe which, no joke, had live music at 11am!!! So cool to listen to and it was another spot where we met a few interesting characters! Breakfast took almost an hour to be served, but we didn’t mind when we had a little blues concert almost to ourselves!
Memphis
On the outskirts of Memphis is Graceland and we stopped off there on the way in. It’s massive! We ended up spending four hours there and we didn’t even see it all! Couldn’t believe we could walk around downstair of Elvis’s house – we saw so much more than we thought!
Beale Street is the main street for nightlife in Memphis. Your senses are hit with loud blues music and neon signs! The street was closed off on Saturday night and we were searched/metal detected before going in. Parts of Memphis are rough, but we never saw anything that made us uncomfortable. The live music was fantastic and the music history that we learned in Memphis was really cool. We did a blues music bus tour which while wasn’t bad, wasn’t great either. But it was good to see the different areas of Memphis and we heard a lot of interesting facts! Sun Studio and Stax Studio are worth a visit. Many famous singers – not just blues singers-have recorded in these studios!
We also visited the Civil Rights Museum and saw where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. So sad to see and hear about why a civil right movement began. While it was heavy going, we were certainly glad we went. The last thing we did in Memphis was to visit the Peabody Hotel at 11am. At this time each morning, an elevator opens and ducks come waddling out and walk to the fountain in the middle of the hotel, where they spend their day. So random! 🙂 It was full of people so we didn’t get a great view, but we found the whole thing hilarious!
Definitely head to B.B. King’s Bar on Beale St. and we really liked the Rum Boogie Cafe too. Lafayettes, in a different area of the city, had great food and the band were excellent. If you’re looking for traditional fried chicken, go to Gus’s!
Tupelo
Tupelo was the birthplace of Elvis and it’s where he got his first guitar. His house is still standing and there’s a small area to walk around and read a bit about his life there. Our AirBnb was very close by. We found a bar with gorgeous decor and we were introduced to shuffleboard, which is good enough craic! We ate in Blue Canoe, really casual and the food was tasty! Tupelo was the only night we couldn’t find live music on the whole trip, so it’s probably best as a quick stop driving through, instead of an overnight visit!
Nashville
Our final stop, where we had to say goodbye to blues and embrace country music!!! Nashville was much more built up than any other place we had been to on this trip. Our hotel was in a great location and we could easily walk to the main nightlife area, Broadway Street. It’s no exaggeration to say that I have never seen nightlife like it. The place was chock-a-block with bars. Not only did every bar have a live band playing, but every bar had live music ON EVERY FLOOR!!!! It was insane!!!!
We stayed three nights here and you wouldn’t need any longer as there isn’t a whole pile to do except go to bars! We drove out to the suburbs and did a bit of shopping and we also spent an afternoon at TopGolf. This was great fun, just make sure to book ahead of time! We would have loved to have seen a concert at the Grand Ole Opry, but unfortunately there wasn’t any in the main concert hall when we were there. Two of our group went to a behind the scenes tour, which sounded very good, but was pricey at €50 for a 45mins tour.
One of my favourite parts of the whole trip was the Blues Berry Cafe. It’s an event where a few songwriters get together, talk about their songs and play music. The cafe is very small, so tickets are really hard to get. Check the website, but for us, tickets went on sale a week before, at 8am and they were sold out immediately! Before you get ready to book, give a look at the seating plan, as when you’re booking you need to specify how many tickets you want for a particular table! We were really lucky to get five tickets, though we weren’t all sitting together.
Driving Info and Tips
Our car hire company was Alamo and we were really happy with our 7-seater. It was a comfortable drive! We didn’t know until we arrived, but spouses/partners of named drivers were automatically eligible to drive the rental car free of charge. FYI: The lead driver has to have a credit card.
The unleaded gas for our trip worked out at €200 in total, which split between 5 people was very cheap! The driving was easy, especially as it was an automatic. But you do need to keep a close eye on the road as there was a lot of debris – sometimes even large pieces of metal, which would do a lot of damage to the car! Before you leave for the trip, download where you will be driving on google maps. That way, if you don’t have internet, you can still use maps to get you to the next place!
Lastly, when you are booking accommodation, check the price of parking, as it varied wildly. If you get a great deal on the parking, double check that it’s In-and-Out parking, which means you have access to your car at all times. Sometimes the cheaper parking deals meant you couldn’t get your car back until you checked out.
Extra Info
Here are a few tips and extra info we picked up along the way!
- We booked this blues trip through Trailfinders, as the flight and car rental combination was cheaper than anywhere else we could find online. But we booked the acommadation and tours ourselves separately. As I said, there were five of us in the group and we paid €1445 each for flights and car hire. An expensive trip I know, but a once in a lifetime one I think!
- The single use plastic everywhere was frightening! Almost every meal was eaten with plastic cutlery and plates.
- Book the tours a good few weeks before you go, as they sell out quickly – especially the food tour in New Orleans!
- We paid $45 for a sim card for one of our phones. I’d highly recommend at least one person in a group to get it as sometimes you just need to look things up on the internet when you’re out and about! We bought ours in Walmart.
- Our accommodation worked out at about €80 per person, per night.
- There is very little public transport anywhere in this area – I don’t even think I saw a bus in any city! So I think you really need to be prepared to use Uber a lot, or rent a car.
- Revolut was really handy here because you can change the currency to dollars, which meant less bank charges!
Well, is it a trip that appeals to you?? Or have you done it before?
Now that we’re back, I’m all gung-ho to get the tiny bathroom finished!! Keep an eye on Instagram stories and I will be giving you all an update really soon!
