Tennessee places

Places to Go in Tennessee

24 towns and places, by region. Pick one on the map, or browse below.

Cities with a guide of their own

These Tennessee cities have their own site in the Dot Life Network, with neighborhoods, restaurants and events.

Chattanooga

The Tennessee Aquarium, the Riverwalk and the Passage, first stops on the Tanasi Trail.

Nashville

Music City, with family-friendly attractions and a booming food scene behind the songs.

East Tennessee

The Smokies, the Cumberland Plateau and the Virginia line

Bristol

Bristol straddles both sides of the Tennessee-Virginia state line, and its Bristol sign, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, spans the width of State Street. Bristol Motor Speedway and the Birthplace of Country Music Museum are among its sights.

Gatlinburg

Gatlinburg is a mountain town in the Great Smoky Mountains with scenic streams open to the public for fishing. The Great Smoky Arts & Crafts Community, which Tennessee Vacation calls the largest group of independent working crafters in the US, is three miles from downtown.

Greeneville

Greeneville is home to Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service and dedicated to his presidency of 1865 to 1869. The park says that presidency illustrates the Constitution at work after the Civil War.

Jonesborough

Jonesborough is Tennessee's oldest town, known for its preserved architecture, walkable Main Street and storytelling heritage. The International Storytelling Center and the Chester Inn State Historic Site & Museum are both here.

Knoxville

Visit Knoxville, the city's tourism bureau, points visitors to its alleys of art, serene trails and restaurants. The Sunsphere is among the sights it recommends.

Pigeon Forge

Pigeon Forge is an East Tennessee mountain town in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, just north of Gatlinburg along US 441. Its tourism department lists Dollywood and The Island among its attractions and places the town at the doorstep of the national park.

Rugby

Rugby is a living Victorian village on Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau, founded in 1880 as the Rugby colony by British author Thomas Hughes. Historic Rugby, Inc., a nonprofit established in 1966, preserves its heritage and offers lodging in the village.

Sevierville

Tennessee Vacation's guide to Sevierville lists the Tennessee Museum of Aviation, Forbidden Caverns and Soaky Mountain Waterpark among its family attractions. Tanger Outlets of Sevierville and the Apple Barn Cider Mill & General Store cover shopping and food.

Tellico Plains

Tellico Plains was once the site of the Overhill Cherokee town of Great Tellico and sits in the valley of the Tellico River. Scott Street Gallery & Studios holds more than 70 local artisans, and the Cherohala Skyway Visitor Center hands out maps for the drive.

Townsend

Townsend sits along Tuckaleechee Cove and calls itself The Peaceful Side of the Smokies. Its visitor site says the history here dates archaeologically to 2000 B.C., and that the Cherokee knew it as a peaceful valley.

Middle Tennessee

Courthouse squares, whiskey country and the Natchez Trace

Bell Buckle

Bell Buckle celebrates Daffodil Day on the third Saturday in March, a festival begun in 1978 for the thousands of daffodils along a six-mile stretch of highway into town. Its shops sell antiques, crafts and work by local artists.

Clarksville

Visit Clarksville sells the city on historic attractions, an artsy vibe, naturally beautiful rivers and trails, and a craft food and beverage scene. It lists events through the year.

Columbia

Columbia's Mule Day began in the 1840s as Breeder's Day, a single-day livestock show and mule market held on the first Monday in April. The first official Mule Day was in 1934, and it is now a multi-day festival with a Saturday parade as its highlight.

Cookeville

Visit Cookeville promotes Cookeville-Putnam County for its state and local parks, historic downtown districts, arts events and trails. Its own waterfall guide and a feature on Burgess Falls point visitors to the water.

Franklin

Franklin's Carter House, a historic home dating to 1830, was caught in the crossfire of the Civil War's Battle of Franklin and still shows preserved damage. The Lotz House and Carnton are other historic stops in the same Tennessee Vacation guide to the town.

Lynchburg

Lynchburg, in Moore County, is home to the Jack Daniel's Distillery, which Tennessee Vacation describes as the oldest registered distillery in the United States. Visitors can join guided tours of the Tennessee Whiskey maker.

Murfreesboro

Murfreesboro is in Rutherford County, which the county's visitor site calls the exact geographic center of Tennessee. That site covers its attractions, parks and recreation, sports and arts.

West Tennessee

Blues and barbecue, up the Mississippi to Reelfoot Lake

Brownsville

Brownsville's West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center holds what it calls the world's only Tina Turner Museum, inside her childhood school, Flagg Grove School. It also has the last home of blues pioneer Sleepy John Estes and sits just off Interstate 40 at Exit 56.

Henning

Henning is the childhood hometown of Alex Haley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Roots, and the Alex Haley Museum and Interpretive Center sits on the grounds of his family home. Fort Pillow State Historic Park, with its Mississippi River bluffs, is also listed at Henning.

Jackson

Visit Jackson describes the city's music scene as rooted in blues, gospel and country. Casey Jones Village is among the stops it features.

Memphis

Tennessee Vacation says Memphis is known around the world as the Home of the Blues and the home of original Memphis-style barbecue. It sends visitors to the restaurants and bars along Beale Street to taste the city's renowned flavors.

Paris

Downtown Paris has a scale-size Eiffel Tower replica in Eiffel Tower Park, built by Christian Brothers University in Memphis for the 1990 Memphis in May festival. The town sits in the state's northwestern corner, near the Kentucky line, and hosts the World's Biggest Fish Fry every April.

Savannah

Savannah is the county seat of Hardin County, with a historic district that traces the growth of the town. The county's tourism site pairs it with Shiloh National Military Park and fishing on Pickwick Lake.

Union City

Union City is home to Discovery Park of America, a 100,000-square-foot museum of science, art, technology and history. Exhibits range from dinosaur fossils to a replica of the human body, and the grounds hold a full-scale 1800s town and gardens.