Triple B Self-Guided Tour

Fourteen nights from New Orleans to Chicago, self-guided, up the Mississippi and along Route 66, with the price quoted on application.

Blues, bourbon and barbecue is how the operator sells it, and for once the alliteration earns its place: the route genuinely strings together the music, the whiskey and the food of the American south and midwest in one ride.

New Orleans opens it with a free day, then Natchez on the Mississippi Blues Trail, and Tupelo up the Natchez Trace Parkway, where Elvis Presley was born in a two-room house that still stands. Clarksdale follows with the Delta Blues Museum and Indianola, where B.B. King grew up, then Memphis for Beale Street and Sun Studio, with a free day for Graceland and the barbecue. Athens in Alabama comes next by Muscle Shoals, then Nashville by way of the Jack Daniel’s distillery at Lynchburg, with the honky-tonks on Broadway. Louisville follows past the National Corvette Museum at Bowling Green, then Springfield through the Hoosier National Forest, Milwaukee on Route 66, and Chicago with the Harley-Davidson Museum.

The motorcycle rental and nightly hotels are confirmed; the full inclusions were not, so they need a manual check, and fuel, insurance, meals and taxes are not covered. The price is given on application. Spring and autumn are the seasons, since the Deep South in high summer is humid and the midwest in winter is not motorcycling country. Fifteen days one way from the Gulf to the Great Lakes is the most comprehensive American music route in this database, and riding it alone rather than in a group means the free days in Memphis and New Orleans can be used properly.