Every honky tonk on Nashville’s Lower Broadway is free to walk into and stay all day

Nashville’s got history in every honky tonk

Downtown Nashville runs from the Cumberland River west to Centennial Park, and almost everything worth seeing sits within a mile of each other.

The city earned the name Music City in 1925 when WSM radio launched the Grand Ole Opry, and it hasn’t stopped performing since.

Millions of people come here every year for the live music, the museums, and a plate of fried chicken so spicy it has its own origin story. The history starts earlier than most people expect.

From a frontier fort to the Athens of the South

Nashville began as Fort Nashborough in 1779, a small settlement on the banks of the Cumberland River. By the 1800s, it had so many colleges and universities that people started calling it the Athens of the South.

Then the Grand Ole Opry launched on WSM radio in 1925, and the city’s identity shifted for good.

Today, the 19th-century buildings along Broadway stand next to modern skyscrapers, and the old commercial strip has become one of the most visited streets in the country.

Lower Broadway plays live music 17 hours a day

Four blocks. That’s all Lower Broadway runs, and every one of them is packed with honky tonks that have been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980.

The bands start at 10 a.m. and play until 3 in the morning, and most venues don’t charge a cover. Willie Nelson played here.

So did Kris Kristofferson, Dierks Bentley, and Blake Shelton. The musicians work for tips, so bring cash.

Before 6 p.m., most spots welcome kids, so the whole family can walk in off the street.

The Ryman’s church walls still shape the sound

Thomas Ryman built the Ryman Auditorium in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle after a tent revival changed his life.

The building’s original church design gave it natural acoustics that engineers have never been able to fully explain or replicate.

The Grand Ole Opry called it home from 1943 to 1974, earning it the nickname Mother Church of Country Music. It’s a National Historic Landmark and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Landmark, and it seats 2,362 people.

Day tours run self-guided or backstage, and concerts happen nearly every night.

Performers slipped out the Ryman’s back door to get here

Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge sits in the alley directly behind the Ryman, and it’s been there since 1960. The purple paint was an accident.

Owner Hattie Louise Bess kept it anyway, and the bar took its name from hers.

During the Opry years, performers would finish their sets, cross the alley, and land at Tootsie’s before they had to go back on. Willie Nelson is said to have landed his first songwriting contract after playing here.

The walls are covered in decades of photographs and memorabilia, floor to ceiling.

Elvis’s gold Cadillac is parked inside this museum

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum covers 350,000 square feet, the result of a $100 million expansion in 2014. More than 2.5 million artifacts fill the building.

The permanent exhibit, Sing Me Back Home, walks you from country music’s folk roots straight through to today.

You can stand next to Elvis Presley’s gold Cadillac, see Mother Maybelle Carter’s Gibson guitar, and look at the walls of gold and platinum records.

The museum also holds Hatch Show Print, a letterpress shop operating since 1879.

Combo tickets get you into Historic RCA Studio B on Music Row, where Elvis, Dolly Parton, and dozens of others recorded.

The Cash museum holds his handwritten lyrics and Grammy awards

The Johnny Cash Museum opened in 2013 on Third Avenue South and holds the largest collection of Cash artifacts in the world.

The exhibits run in chronological order, so you move through his life from the beginning: performance costumes, guitars, Grammy awards, handwritten lyrics, and a stone wall from his lakeside home.

USA Today’s Readers’ Choice Awards named it Best Music Museum in America three years running, from 2023 to 2025.

The Cash estate authorized everything here, and the AAA gave it a Gem rating, one of only six Nashville attractions to get one.

A 42-foot goddess stands inside this free Greek temple

Nashville has a full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens, and it has since 1897.

Architect William Crawford Smith designed it for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, and it’s been sitting in Centennial Park ever since.

Inside, Nashville artist Alan LeQuire sculpted a 42-foot gilded statue of Athena, unveiled in 1990.

The interior is temporarily closed from March through late June 2026 for HVAC work, but the exterior and the surrounding 132-acre park are open.

The park is free, with walking paths, a lake, and open green space.

The spiciest fried chicken in America has a revenge origin story

Nashville hot chicken goes back to the 1930s, and it started in the city’s African American community.

The story involves a man named Thornton Prince, whose girlfriend reportedly doused his fried chicken in cayenne pepper paste to punish him. He loved it and built a business around it.

Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, still run by the family’s fourth generation, won a James Beard Foundation American Classic Award.

The dish is fried in a skillet, coated in cayenne paste, and served on white bread with pickle chips. It stayed local for decades before the rest of the country caught on in the 2010s.

Several downtown attractions will cost you nothing

The Tennessee State Museum charges no admission and gives you three floors of exhibits on the state’s history, from its earliest peoples through the 20th century.

The Music City Walk of Fame lines Hall of Fame Park with stars honoring the artists and figures who shaped Nashville’s music industry.

The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge crosses the Cumberland River into East Nashville and gives you a straight-on view of the skyline, best at sunset.

Riverfront Park runs along the river and hosts free concerts and festivals.

The Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, just north of downtown, covers 19 acres with outdoor exhibits and a 200-foot granite map of Tennessee.

The Grand Ole Opry has run every week since 1925

No radio broadcast in American history has run longer than the Grand Ole Opry.

It started on WSM in 1925, left the Ryman for the Grand Ole Opry House in 1974, and it still goes every week. The Opry House sits about eight miles east of downtown.

Each show runs around two hours and brings in seven or more artists playing a mix of classic and current country. During select winter months, the show moves back to the Ryman, which is worth planning around.

Daytime tours of the Opry House let you walk the artists’ dressing rooms and see the circle of wood cut from the Ryman’s original stage.

Nashville’s live music runs deeper than Broadway

The Bluebird Cafe in Green Hills fits 90 people and built its reputation on songwriter rounds, where artists perform their own songs in a room small enough that you can hear every word.

The Station Inn in the Gulch is widely considered one of the best bluegrass venues in the country.

Printers Alley, a historic alleyway just off Broadway, was Nashville’s nightlife center in the early 20th century and still hosts live performances in close quarters.

The Schermerhorn Symphony Center, home of the Nashville Symphony, draws audiences for classical concerts in a hall known for its acoustics.

The country is what brings most people here, but it’s far from the only thing playing.

Getting around downtown Nashville, Tennessee

You can reach most of what makes downtown worth visiting on foot, with the bulk of the major attractions running within a mile of each other along Broadway and the surrounding blocks.

WeGo Public Transit runs the free Music City Circuit bus, which connects stops including the Farmers Market, Broadway, and the Tennessee State Museum. Wear comfortable shoes.

Most people end up covering several miles without realizing it, and by the end of the day, your feet will have the receipts.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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