We were in Nashville in mid-November 2022, as part of Big Trip #4. Read about our favorites from our five previous trips here.

We’ve now taken the Airstream to Nashville six times… but we may not return. Why? We love Nashville, but part of the reason is because we loved our campground at the Nashville Fairgrounds, which was convenient to everything. The Fairgrounds closed the public RV campground last year, so we thought we’d give another campground a shot to see if we’d still enjoy stopping in Nashville when traveling between Memphis and Asheville.

Campground

We stayed at the Nashville KOA, a big campground with the usual KOA amenities north of the city near the Grand Ole Opry and Opryland. We arrived fifteen minutes before the official check-in time, and they wanted to charge us $15 to get into our (vacant) site early. Combine that not-so-warm welcome with our site being completely covered with leaves, lots of highway noise, and a 20-minute drive into downtown, and we really missed our old Fairgrounds home.

Eating and drinking and not exercising

Our favorite restaurant in Nashville is Husk, and we managed to get a reservation for bar seats. Food and cocktails and service were stellar as always, and we left stuffed. Holy cow their buttermilk biscuits are to diiiiie for.

Despite being stuffed, we had to hit a brewery while in a city with so much good beer. Southern Grist has a cool new taproom in East Nashville kinda on the way home to the KOA. They had hazy IPAs for J, of course, and they had SIX sours for me! We tasted a bunch of things and went home with several cans.

The next morning we’d planned to run on the Shelby Bottoms Greenway, but it was cold and rainy, so we skipped that activity. Shelby Bottoms is closer to the KOA than to the Fairgrounds, so there’s something positive about staying so far up north. Our home gym, MADabolic, has a new location in Nashville very close to the Fairgrounds, but that, and our usual Nashville gym Barry’s Bootcamp were too far to drive from the KOA.

Since the Airstream has been relegated to the northern suburbs, and all the stuff we like about Nashville is close to or just south of downtown, we’re not super keen to stop in Nashville again with the trailer. The problem is Nashville is a nice halfway point when traveling I-40 between Asheville and Memphis, and to swing south through Chattanooga and Huntsville adds an hour. So after all this complaining, maybe we’ll keep stopping in Nashville after all! Just keep feeding me Husk biscuits and I’ll be happy.

To do

After talking to friends who recently visited Nashville, I want to save a couple suggestions here for if and when we return–

• Donut Distillery – donuts and booze! In East Nashville (there’s also a downtown location, but we’re more likely to be in East Nashville)
• Chopper – a tiki bar in East Nashville, close to Donut Distillery