Nashville
The main event — Broadway honky-tonks, real restaurants, and hotel prices two or three times what you’ll pay in Robertson County.
Downtown Nashville Broadway honky-tonks at night
Why people stay in Nashville
Nashville needs no introduction, but it needs a warning: downtown hotel rates start around $180 on weeknights and can push $400 on weekends when there's a football game or a big concert. Broadway is genuinely fun and genuinely a tourist zone, packed with live music from 10am to 3am. East Nashville, Germantown, and 12 South are where locals eat and drink. The Gulch is the newer luxury cluster with the best hotels if money isn’t the issue.
Stay in Nashville only if walking out of your hotel into Broadway matters to you, or if you’re doing three-plus nights and don’t want to drive. Otherwise, base in Goodlettsville or Springfield and drive in — you’ll save $100-$200 a night and a fifteen-minute Uber ride is not the end of the world. Skip if you want quiet, cheap, or small-town anything. Nashville is a real city and prices accordingly.
Downtown around Broadway and the Gulch has the newest hotels, $200-$400 a night, walk-out access to music and food. Midtown and Vanderbilt area has slightly cheaper options, $150-$280, ten-minute Uber to Broadway. East Nashville is where locals stay when they need a Nashville hotel — quieter, more boutique-y, $180-$320. Airport-area hotels off Donelson Pike run $120-$180 and are useful for early flights but nowhere else.
Things to do in Nashville
The blocks between 2nd and 5th on Broadway. Free live music in most bars from 10am to close, tip the band $5-$20. Beer $8-$12, cocktails $14-$18. Robert's Western World and Tootsie's are the classic stops. Nights are packed by 8pm on weekends.
On 5th Avenue South downtown. Admission around $28, allow three hours. Genuinely well-curated even if you’re not a country music fan. Combined tickets with the Ryman are the smart buy. Open daily, less crowded weekday mornings.
Hattie B's Midtown location or Prince's on Ewing Drive. Plates $12-$18. Order the medium unless you’re sure — 'hot' actually means hot. Under an hour with waits. Cash accepted everywhere.
In the Opryland complex, 20 minutes from downtown. Tickets $50-$120, shows Tuesday, Friday, Saturday most weeks. Two-hour show, guest artists rotate. Park at the venue $20, or Uber to avoid the exit traffic.
What to see
Hotels in Nashville
No hotels are listed in Nashville yet. The nearest ones are on the region page.
Every hotel we cover in Nashville
- Quality Inn & Suites Joelton Nashville 2★ · 4.7/5
Getting around Nashville
Nashville International (BNA) is 15 minutes from downtown by car, $25-$40 by Uber. WeGo bus route 18 connects the airport to downtown for around $2 — usable but slow. Downtown Nashville itself is walkable if you stay in the Broadway/Gulch/Midtown corridor. Parking downtown runs $20-$35 per stay in garages. Rush hour (4-6pm) is genuinely bad — plan around it or accept it.
Questions about Nashville
Broadway proper is heavily policed and safe, though it's a drunk-tourist zone by 10pm — expect chaos, not danger. A few blocks away in less-touristed areas, standard urban caution applies. Use Uber after midnight rather than walking more than a few blocks.
If you’re doing two nights of concentrated Broadway nightlife, stay in Nashville — walking home beats a 40-minute Uber. For anything else, base in Goodlettsville or Springfield, save $100+ per night, and Uber into downtown for evenings. The math almost always favors the suburbs for three-plus nights.
