Discover the Deep South Fly Drive

Ten nights from Nashville to New Orleans, self-guided, through the music cities of the American South, with the flights included.

Three cities, three nights each, and a night in between: the shape is simple and it works, because the distances are modest and each stop has more than enough in it.

Nashville opens it, with Opryland, the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Belle Meade mansion of 1853, a Greek Revival house built on the labour of the people enslaved there, which the site now addresses directly. Memphis follows for three nights, with Graceland and Beale Street, where two dozen venues play most nights of the week. Natchez comes next for a night at a historic inn on the Mississippi, then New Orleans for three, with the French Quarter, Bourbon Street and the jazz that the city has never stopped producing.

Flights out to Nashville and home from New Orleans, a checked bag each way, eight days of fully inclusive car hire and all ten nights at the named hotels are included; fuel, most meals, the attraction admissions and the one-way car drop-off fee, payable locally, are not. The price shown is per person sharing. Spring and autumn are the seasons, since the Gulf states in August are hot and humid. Flying into one city and home from another avoids doubling back, which on a route this linear is the right call. Eleven days is enough to give each city a proper run at it rather than a night, and the drive between them is a few hours at a time on good roads.