Things to Do in Nashville: A Canadian First-Timer's Guide

If you only do five things in Nashville, do these: spend an evening bar-hopping the honky-tonks on Lower Broadway, see a show at the Ryman Auditorium, take in the Country Music Hall of Fame, get out to the Grand Ole Opry for the show that made the city, and eat hot chicken at least once. That is the core of a first trip. Everything below is how to build the rest of it — written for a Canadian arriving for the first time, which is a different brief than the American weekend guides that fill the search results.

Is Nashville worth visiting?

Yes, and specifically it is worth visiting if you like music, food and walkable cities, and are not expecting a beach. Nashville's appeal is unusually concentrated: the entire core is compact, live music is free and continuous rather than something you buy a ticket for, and the standard is genuinely high because the city is full of working musicians. It is also an easy first American city for Canadians — short flight, no language barrier, familiar systems, and a downtown you can do on foot.

The honest counterweight: downtown Nashville is loud, busy and increasingly built around bachelorette parties and party buses. If your idea of a good trip is quiet, you will want to stay slightly outside the core and treat Broadway as an evening you visit rather than a place you live.

Broadway and the honky-tonks

Lower Broadway is the reason most people come. It is a few blocks of multi-storey bars, all with live bands, all with no cover charge, running from late morning until the small hours. You walk in, you listen, you tip the band, you move on. Robert's Western World is the one locals still send people to for traditional country. Tootsie's Orchid Lounge is the famous one. The Stage and Jack's Bar-B-Que anchor the rest of the strip.

Two practical notes. Bands play on tips, so carry small US bills — the tip bucket comes around and it is genuinely how they get paid. And the strip is at its best on a weekday evening; a Saturday night in summer is a crush.

Ryman Auditorium

The Ryman is the single best building in Nashville and the one thing I would tell a first-timer not to skip. It is a former tabernacle turned concert hall, it was the Grand Ole Opry's home for over thirty years, and the acoustics are the reason artists still talk about playing it. You can tour it during the day, but if there is any show on during your stay — genre almost irrelevant — buy the ticket. Sitting in those pews is the experience.

Grand Ole Opry

The Opry is the live radio show that built country music, still broadcasting, now staged at the Grand Ole Opry House out by Opry Mills, about a twenty-minute drive northeast of downtown. The format is a rotating bill of several artists rather than one headliner, which means you see a range in one night and you do not need to know the lineup to enjoy it. Some weeks the show returns to the Ryman downtown, which is the version to book if you have the choice. Note that it is not walkable from downtown — plan a rideshare or a car.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Downtown, easy to reach on foot, and better than the name suggests even if country music is not your thing — it is really a museum about American songwriting and the business behind it. Budget two hours. The add-on tour of RCA Studio B on Music Row, where Elvis recorded a great deal of his catalogue, is the part people remember most, and it has to be booked through the museum.

Live music beyond Broadway

This is where a good Nashville trip separates itself from a generic one. The Bluebird Cafe in Green Hills is the famous listening room — tiny, songwriters in the round, notoriously hard to get into, and worth the effort of trying. The Station Inn in the Gulch is the bluegrass institution. East Nashville's bars run more toward indie and Americana and are where you go when Broadway has worn you out. Nashville also gets major touring acts at Bridgestone Arena downtown and Ascend Amphitheater on the river, so check what is on for your dates before you plan your evenings.

Where to eat in Nashville

Hot chicken is the local dish and it is not a gimmick — it is fried chicken carrying serious cayenne heat, ordered by heat level, and it is a genuine Nashville invention. Prince's is the original; Hattie B's is the one most visitors go to and the easiest to find. Order one step below the heat you think you can handle.

Beyond that, the city does Southern cooking properly — meat-and-three plates, biscuits, barbecue — and has a serious modern restaurant scene concentrated in the Gulch, Germantown and East Nashville. The Nashville Farmers' Market near Bicentennial Mall is a good, cheap lunch stop and useful on a day you are on foot downtown.

Best neighbourhoods to explore

• The Gulch — polished, walkable, restaurants and rooftops; the easy choice for a first visit.
• East Nashville — across the river, more local, better bars, vintage shops, the counterweight to Broadway.
• 12 South — a short strip of independent shops and cafés; a pleasant couple of hours rather than a day.
• Germantown — historic streets and some of the city's best restaurants, quieter than the core.
• Midtown and Music Row — the record-label district and the Vanderbilt end of town, with the Bluebird nearby.
• Centennial Park — home to the full-scale replica of the Parthenon, which is exactly as odd and as photogenic as it sounds.

Nashville in 3 days

Three days is the right length for a first visit, and this is the shape I would give it.

Day 1 — Downtown

Country Music Hall of Fame in the morning, lunch downtown, walk the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge for the skyline view, then Broadway in the evening. Tour the Ryman if you cannot get a show.

Day 2 — Music and neighbourhoods

RCA Studio B tour, then spend the afternoon in the Gulch or 12 South. Hot chicken for lunch. Grand Ole Opry in the evening — book this before you travel, not once you arrive.

Day 3 — The other Nashville

East Nashville in the morning, Centennial Park and the Parthenon, or the Hermitage — Andrew Jackson's estate, about half an hour east — if you want history. A listening room such as the Station Inn in the evening.

Nashville for couples

It works well, provided you build the trip around music and food rather than nightlife. Stay in the Gulch or Germantown rather than on Broadway, book a Ryman show, eat well, and use Broadway for one evening rather than three. Cheekwood Estate and Gardens is the good half-day away from the noise.

Nashville for groups and girls' trips

Nashville is one of North America's biggest bachelorette destinations, which is either the appeal or the thing to plan around. If it is the appeal, stay downtown and book everything early — good rooms for spring and early-summer weekends go months out. If it is not, avoid a downtown hotel on a Saturday and you will barely notice. For groups of eight or more, a room block booked through an advisor is usually cheaper and far less painful than everyone booking separately.

Group travel planning

Do you need a car in Nashville?

Not for downtown. If you are staying in the core and doing Broadway, the museums and the Gulch, you can walk it and use rideshares for the Opry. A car becomes worth it once you want East Nashville, Cheekwood, the Hermitage, the distilleries or a day trip to Franklin — and it changes the calculation entirely if you drove down from Canada, because then the question is not whether to rent but where to park.

When is the best time to visit Nashville?

April to May and September to October. Spring and autumn give you warm days without the summer humidity, which is real and heavy from late June through August. June is festival season and the city is at its liveliest and its most expensive. Winter is the cheapest and quietest, and while it is cold by Nashville standards it will not trouble anyone who lives through a Quebec January.

Where to stay

Short version: downtown and the Gulch for first-timers who want to walk to everything, Germantown or East Nashville if you want quiet, and anywhere with parking included if you drove. Broadway-adjacent hotels are loud — that is the trade for the location, and it is worth knowing before you book rather than after.

Where to stay in Nashville — neighbourhood by neighbourhood

How to get to Nashville from Canada

Air Canada flies nonstop from Montreal-Trudeau to Nashville, around two hours forty-five minutes, roughly fourteen times a week. Toronto has nonstops too, at just over two hours. Driving is a genuine option — about 16 hours 30 minutes from Montreal, about 11 hours 30 minutes from Toronto — and makes sense for groups or for anyone wanting to attach Memphis or the Smoky Mountains.

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