Hey travelers, merry Christmas! I hope your holiday was filled with friends, family, and maybe even a little bit of snow! Welcome to my Nashville, Tennessee travel guide. After my college graduation last week, my boyfriend and I visited music city for a few days and it was AMAZING so keep reading to hear all about what we did while we were there!
Starting off, we stayed in an Airbnb instead of a hotel. It was our very first time using Airbnb and it ended up being perfect for us. We rented an entire apartment and it was only around $80 a night, which is a lot cheaper than most of the hotels in the Nashville area! We were only about fifteen minutes away from the downtown area and the apartment was the cutest! We will definitely be using Airbnb for our next getaway. If you haven’t used Airbnb, use this referral link (www.airbnb.com/c/allisons3280) to get started with planning your next trip!
From Harrisonburg, it took about eight hours to get to Nashville. Because we wanted to have a chance to explore before the sun went down, we left at four o’clock in the morning and it was a pretty smooth drive. We were a bit surprised though, when we were driving, because the clocks switched back – we had changed time zones and didn’t know we were going to! It ended up being really convenient because we got there a whole hour earlier than expected but it definitely threw us off for a second!
When we got to the city, we hit the ground running. Nashville is known for good antiquing, which is something my boyfriend and I both love to do, so we went to all the best shops. We started with the Nashville Farmer’s Market, which isn’t an antique shop but was still a good way to meet some local people and get a feel for what was to come. Next, we went to the 8th Ave Antique Mall and this is where I hit the jackpot! Coming to Nashville, I only wanted one thing and that was a cow skull to hang as decoration in my new apartment and I found it! Speaking of my new apartment, keep an eye out for moving blogs – they’ll be coming soon! Moving on from that shop, we headed to Gaslamp and Gaslamp Too and these were two shops that I loved. They had so much inventory and a good variety of styles and it wasn’t crowded at all. After this, we headed to the Downtown Antique Mall and this one has to be my favorite out of all of them. It’s located in this really cool, old building and I wish I could live in it! It had a really neat vibe and I’d love to go back.
We had had a pretty packed day with the long drive and then running around to all the different shop locations but we ended our day with walking the strip. This is where all the famous Nashville bars and souvenir shops are. It was awesome! There was so much to do and look at and in every bar you could hear someone performing that could’ve been on the radio and it was a really incredible experience. My favorite tourist shop along the strip was Jack Daniel’s Genuine Goods. They had a lot of cute trinkets that weren’t too cheesy and they actually had a really great decal selection as well! I’d definitely recommend stopping by if you’re visiting Nashville for the first time.
Day two in Nashville was jam packed just like day one. We started off with going to the Loveless Cafe for brunch! I had read about the Loveless Cafe but hadn’t seen many pictures and it was so much cooler than I expected! It was more of a compound rather than a restaurant – they had a general store, souvenir shop, and a wedding venue all on the same property! I got pancakes and my boyfriend got a breakfast sandwich and they were both pretty good. Not to-die-for but the atmosphere was one of a kind. Next, we drove to Hey Rooster General Store because I had heard they had some cute Nashville apparel and I wanted to pick up something to remember this trip by. It didn’t disappoint and I wish I could go back every weekend!
The Nashville Parthenon was next on our list and we loved it! It’s surrounded by a little park and walking around it was a good breather from the city buildings. Luckily, it wasn’t too cold during our time there so we were able to enjoy our time. From there, we walked about a block over to a cookie dough shop called No Baked. No Baked was one of my favorite places we visited! It’s basically an ice cream shop but instead of ice cream, it’s cookie dough that you can eat. There were a ton of cookie dough flavors and the woman that served us was so sweet. Coming here is a must!
After getting our sugar fix from No Baked, we drove across town to the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge. This gave us an amazing view of the Nashville skyline and you can see the strip from the bridge too. Parking is also really convenient around the bridge so if you’re looking for something to do around the strip in the daytime, this is it! The Nashville mural was next on our list. Somehow, almost no one else was around when we got to the mural! It’s an extremely popular tourist location so I guess we just got lucky but it was so fun to be able to see it in person after seeing it on Instagram and Pinterest for so many years. For dinner that night, we went to the Flying Saucer and it was really low-key and wonderful. We will definitely be going back next time we’re in Nashville!
Sadly, our third day in Nashville was our last day. We got a pretty early start and headed to downtown Franklin, TN. This is a town that’s about thirty minutes outside of Nashville but it’s definitely worth the drive. They had the cutest little strip of shops (with an Anthropolgie!) and everyone was so, so nice. That’s something that we found a lot of in Nashville – nice people! We ended our whirlwind trip with a coffee break at a coffee shop called the Frothy Monkey and were on our way.
I’m so thankful to have had such a wonderful graduation trip and I can’t wait for the next time I’ll be back in Nashville. Everyone was so sweet and the city has so much to offer! Thanks for reading this week’s post and I’ll be back next week to show you what I got for Christmas this year. See you then!
