So you got yourself a hotel room downtown (check rates) and you’re ready to blaze into town and hit the honky tonks for a weekend in Nashville. Bless your heart. While a lot of other sites are going to offer you a “perfect” 3 day itinerary or claim to have knowledge “from a local” I’m an actual East Nashville resident and I’m here to tell you: locals don’t particularly care for tourists.
There’s a lot to that statement and a full explanation is beyond the scope of this post. If you really want to hear insider tips from locals it is possible. But you have to ask in person. It helps to have your act together when you do. Sometimes it pays to have friends in low places.
Ten Commandments of Nashville Tourism
This is not just a list of what irks locals whenever we see it. It’s also solid advice to follow if you want to make the most of your weekend in Nashville and have a smooth, hassle-free experience. Let’s not pretend you’re going to find hidden gems or discover Country’s next rising star. You’re coming to get drunk downtown and hopefully not embarrass yourself. Are you sure Hank done it this way?
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1. Check the Calendar and the Weather
Before you book you should google your dates to see if any large events are happening that weekend in Nashville. Particularly in the warm weather months it’s not uncommon for the whole of downtown to be taken over with CMA Fest, the Grand Prix, or some other large event. Coming during these times if you’re not interested in the event is not only inconvenient, it’s more expensive. Four years later locals are still having a good laugh at the bachelorettes who arrived at the NFL draft.
As your trip approaches and during your weekend in Nashville keep a close eye on the weather. Even if you are planning to stay indoors Summer thunderstorms and tornado warnings can make getting around extra inconvenient. If you’re attending a show at Ascend Amphitheater or Nissan Stadium and lightning strikes they will evacuate and it will be chaotic and miserable. Locals monitor Nashville Severe Weather and their socials for real time location-specific updates.
2. Don’t AirBnB Your Weekend in Nashville
When you rent and AirBnb unit in Nashville you’re stepping into the breach of a war that’s been going on for years. AirBnb investors have played a large part in our city’s housing affordability crisis and turned our neighborhoods into a bacchanal playground for tourists.
When you check in you’re being watched by both sides. The neighbors know who the owners are and fight them bitterly. They are collecting video evidence and reporting to the city things like guests drinking and smoking pot in the yard, illegal parking, dogs being walked on their lawns, and trash left in the street. AirBnb investors are often using video surveillance not just to counter the claims of neighbors, but to protect their own investments inside and out.
Check prices on Expedia and find a hotel room instead.
3. Stay Out of Our Grocery Stores
Nearly every time I go shopping there’s an Uber or a limousine sitting in the fire lane at Kroger while the passengers are inside loading up multiple carts with White Claw, snacks, and whatever else. These are the same jerks who are staying in AirBnb’s.
How do I know they’re jerks? Non-jerks don’t need a full end-cap display of Pedialyte to cure their hangovers.
We’re just trying to do our shopping and and go about our lives. That whole section of a grocery store full of souvenirs and junky tourist stuff could be something productive for locals like an organic food section. If you think you’re blending in by staying in a neighborhood, you’re not.
4. Skip the Party Buses and Scooters
It’s not just my opinion I’m giving you about STR’s, transpotainment, and scooters. People in Nashville are so mad about these things the metro council was forced to pass laws dealing with them. In the case of STR’s and scooters it has helped. If you ride a scooter do not ride or park on the sidewalk.
Through a quirk in the law the council is not able to easily regulate party vehicles. Their number on the downtown streets has increased to 80-90 distinct vehicles on the busiest nights. Downtown Nashville is not large enough to support that many party buses. I don’t understand why anyone would pay good money for what is not sightseeing but merely drinking in a traffic jam.
Fortunately the problem is improving without legislation. The police department now routinely closes Broadway to traffic on weekends in Nashville. If you are booking a party bus you should be aware of that. It won’t be rolling down Broadway. The best they can do now is cross Broadway going north and south. That is not the same experience and slowly the number of active vehicles seems to be decreasing.
5. Leave Your Hat and Guitar at Home
I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve seen a real Nashville local in a cowboy hat. This ain’t Texas. We all think you look silly but as long as you stay downtown for your weekend in Nashville we probably won’t see you anyway.
It often happens that locals and tourists are forced to share flights at the airport. Nashvillians will fight you if you try to put a hat or guitar in the overhead. And we’ll win. If you’re not at the point in your musical career where you can have a road case and check your instrument you’re not ready for prime time.
6. Leave the Guns and MAGA at Home Too
I won’t get into the intricacies of politics in Nashville. Suffice to say that Music City is a very liberal town and Broadway is largely apolitical, at least on the surface. If you show up decked out in MAGA and flying the Trump flag not only will the locals despise you but you’ll look very much out of place on Broadway. This isn’t some cheesy boardwalk and the gift shops don’t sell shirts making fun of Joe Biden. Broadway may be tacky but at least it has some dignity.
You won’t need your gun either. MNPD Has decades of experience policing on Broadway and they will be out in force. Every bar has a large security staff. The larger ones have sophisticated operations in place behind the scenes. Take a look at Ole Red’s policy as an example. Practically every bar on Broadway displays the same sign seen above, which does carry the force of law. It is not legal to carry and drink in a bar at the same time.
Overall this is a very safe city and your gun is far more likely to be stolen out of your car than it is to protect you.
7. We Don’t Want to Buy the Bride a Drink
There wouldn’t be 90 party vehicles roaming the streets if there weren’t literally hundreds of bachelor/bachelorette parties crawling around every weekend in Nashville. I’m sure it looks glamorous on social media or in the bridal magazine ads.
When you get here you should realize quickly that having a special day doesn’t make you special. It’s something of a cookie-cutter experience. A little paint by numbers vacation. If you want to wear a hat and dance you really will be better off in Austin or Scottsdale.
8. Tip the Band
Not only do you need to tip the band, you need to tip everyone… generously. Sunday night when you’re back home the folks working on Broadway are still grinding it out. Bars don’t pay musicians to appear. They rely entirely on tips. There’s no cover charge but you should consider $5 per person for every bar you walk into the minimum amount to tip.
Keep in mind that if your group is venturing out to 12 South or East Nashville that the more of these 10 commandments you break, the bigger you have to tip out there to smooth things over.
9. Visit the Museums
Downtown Nashville is home to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Auditorium, and the National Museum of African American Music. They’re all great. As much as locals complain about tourists here we do visit the museums ourselves. We take out of town friends there when they come to visit. At a minimum you should see any two of them on a weekend in Nashville and preferably all three. After all, you can’t be drinking all day and night. You need to tell the folks back home you got at least a little culture.
10. NFL Fans Are Welcome Here
Owing to Nashville’s geographic location and the fact that it’s well served by airlines focused on leisure travel. It’s an ideal place to see your team play a road game. The Titans’ fanbase is not as broad or committed as fans in places like Green Bay, Buffalo or Pittsburgh. Tickets are not terribly difficult or expensive to get and visiting fans typically enjoy a warm reception at the stadium. They also tend to be very chill when they’re downtown and enjoy themselves quite a bit.
Nissan is directly across the river from downtown and is easy to reach on foot from any downtown hotel. The NFL schedule is released far in advance and many fans lock in their plane tickets and hotel early.
Doing a Weekend in Nashville Right
Friday: Arrive early evening and check into your hotel dowtown. Have dinner somewhere near Printer’s Alley and pop in there for a little music.
Saturday: Country HOF and Ryman in the morning. Edley’s Barbecue in 5 Points for lunch. Walk around 5 Points and catch a little college football in the bars there. Have dinner in the Gulch and pop into the Station Inn and/or 3rd & Lindsley.
Sunday: Get breakfast downtown and walk to Nissan Stadium. Have a late lunch on a rooftop before splitting town Sunday evening.
Boom. There you go. Perfect 3 day itinerary for a weekend in Nashville from a local. No hats, guns, or party buses required.
