Tennessee Music Trail: From Dolly to Elvis

Fly from the UK to Atlanta, where your hire car is waiting, and point it north towards the green hills of Tennessee as your music trail begins.

Cradled in a sweeping bend of the Tennessee River and ringed by forested ridges, Chattanooga is the perfect gentle start, a city of riverside walkways, craft breweries and Southern kitchens that ease you into the rhythm of the South. Spend the night at The Read House, a grand 1920s hotel full of old-world glamour, then rise to explore Lookout Mountain, where hidden waterfalls, cliff-top gardens and views stretching across seven states reward the climb, before tipping your hat to the Chattanooga Choo Choo, the first song on your Tennessee soundtrack.

Nashville doesn't just play music, it lives and breathes it, and there's no better place to feel its heartbeat than Dolly's dazzling Songteller Hotel, right in the heart of Music City. By day, wander through the stories of country's greatest names, from the hallowed Ryman Auditorium to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and by night let the honky-tonks of Lower Broadway pull you in with their fiddles, steel guitars and singers chasing their big break. The highlight is an evening at the Grand Ole Opry, the legendary stage where country stars have been made for a century, and a show you'll be humming long after the curtain falls.

Just south of the bright lights lies Franklin, the charming small town where many of country music's biggest names choose to come home. Its Victorian Main Street is lined with antique shops, boutiques and cosy cafés, while the surrounding Williamson County countryside unfolds in white-fenced horse farms and rolling pastures. Venture out to the tiny village of Leiper's Fork, where art galleries sit beside a famous old roadhouse and you never quite know who might pick up a guitar.

Head west to Memphis, the city where the blues found its voice and Rock 'n' roll was born, and settle into three nights at the Guest House at Graceland, right beside the home of the King. Step through Graceland's famous gates on your VIP tour, a glittering journey through Elvis's life, his music and his legendary style, then travel south to Tupelo, Mississippi, to see the humble two-room house where it all began. Back in Memphis, follow the music to Sun Studio, where history was recorded, and to Beale Street, where the neon flickers, the barbecue smokes and the blues plays on into the night.

Fly from Memphis to the UK.