Things to See Between Nashville and Memphis: A Road Trip Guide

How Far Is It, Really?

If you’re mapping out things to see between Nashville and Memphis, start with the numbers. The fastest route between the two cities covers about 369 km (229 mi) and takes roughly 3 hours and 30 minutes of driving without stops. There’s also a route with fewer highways, but at 358 km (222 mi) and about 4 hours and 50 minutes, it’s roughly 37% slower — a scenic idea in theory, but not a practical alternative if you want to actually get somewhere.

That means the drive itself is short enough to do in an afternoon, but long enough that a few well-placed stops turn it from a highway slog into an actual road trip.

Starting in Nashville

Before you hit the road, it’s worth giving Nashville its due. This is a city built around live music — honky-tonks on Broadway spill sound onto the sidewalk day and night — alongside serious hot chicken, deep Civil War history, and a country music heritage anchored by the Grand Ole Opry. Beyond the neon, there’s a real arts scene and neighborhoods with their own distinct personality. With a population of over 650,000, it’s a genuine city, not a stopover town, and most travelers plan somewhere between two and four days here before heading west.

If you have the time, three stops are worth building into your Nashville days: the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Frist Art Museum, and the Tennessee State Museum. Between them you get country music history, rotating art exhibitions, and a broader look at the state’s past — a good mix before a few hours in the car.

The First Leg: Nashville to Dickson

The drive from Nashville to Dickson is short — about 69 km (43 mi), roughly 40 minutes — which makes it an easy first stretch to shake off city traffic before the road opens up. It’s a natural point to make sure you’ve got gas, snacks, and everyone settled in for the longer haul ahead.

The Middle Stretch: Dickson to Jackson

This is the longest single leg of the trip: about 158 km (98 mi), or roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes. It’s a good stretch to plan a proper break rather than just a gas-station pit stop — a sit-down meal, a walk around, or just switching drivers. Jackson sits roughly at the midpoint of the whole Nashville–Memphis drive, which makes it a sensible place to split the day if you’re not in a rush.

The Final Leg: Jackson to Memphis

From Jackson, it’s about 143 km (89 mi) and roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes into Memphis. By this point you’re covering the last third of the route, and it’s worth timing your arrival with enough daylight left to check into your hotel, get oriented, and maybe catch an early dinner before diving into Beale Street or the city’s music history the next day.

Eating and Sleeping Along the Way

None of the towns between Nashville and Memphis are large enough to require much research — the point of stopping isn’t a destination meal, it’s a break in the drive. Look for a casual restaurant near the highway exit for lunch, and if you’re splitting the drive over two days, a mid-route town like Jackson is a reasonable place to look for a place to stay overnight. If you’re traveling with pets or have dietary needs, it’s worth checking ahead, since options shrink the smaller the town.

Planning the Drive So It Actually Works

A road trip like this looks simple on paper — three legs, one highway, under four hours of driving. In practice, the details are what make or break the day: how long you actually want to spend in Nashville before leaving, whether Jackson makes sense as an overnight stop or just a lunch break, and what time you need to leave to reach Memphis with enough daylight to enjoy it.

This is where Journey Builder fits in, alongside other trip-planning tools — it’s worth listing first here because of how directly it applies to a route like this one. It builds the Nashville-to-Memphis route automatically, with the distance and drive time for every leg spelled out, and lets you choose between the fastest option or one with fewer highways if you’d rather see more of the state. It also ranks the towns along the way — including Dickson and Jackson — and shows whether each is right on your route or how far off it sits, so you’re not guessing about detours. Once you’ve picked your stops, its auto-scheduler turns them into a day-by-day plan built around your wake-up and bedtime, drive times, and meals, so a three-city trip like this one goes from a rough idea to a plan you can actually follow. You can see how this looks in practice on the things to do page.

Planning Other Road Trips

If this drive has you thinking about longer trips, the same kind of stop-by-stop planning applies elsewhere — take a look at Things to See Between Austin and New Orleans or Things to See Between Tampa and Orlando for two other classic American road trips broken down the same way.

Ready to Plan Your Own

In this series

• Road Trip From Nashville to Memphis: Route, Stops, and Timing
• How Far Is Nashville to Memphis? Distance, Drive Time and Best Stops
• The Best Time to Drive from Nashville to Memphis
• Things to See Between Nashville and Memphis: A Road Trip Guide