Long Weekend
3 days · ~340 miles · from Nashville
The old Dixie Highway's whole Tennessee-to-Georgia act: whiskey country and the plateau to Chattanooga, then the General's road down the Atlanta Campaign to the city.
This trip chains: US 41: Dixie Highway, Nashville to Chattanooga · US 41: Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign
Starting in Nashville, this 3-day itinerary connects US 41: Dixie Highway, Nashville to Chattanooga and US 41: Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign. It suits travellers interested in barbecue, boudin, oysters & tamales; battlefields, the movement & the past. The day-by-day bases let you split roughly 340 miles into a sequence of visits rather than trying to cover every linked route end to end. Use the daily highlights to decide which places deserve your longest stops.
Budget an average of about 113 miles per day across the whole trip, or roughly 2.5–3.8 hours behind the wheel at an assumed 30–45 mph back-roads pace. This is a planning estimate, not a measured time for each leg: transfer days can be longer and rest days shorter. Add meal stops, tours, ferries, traffic and hikes separately; use each day's navigation link for current driving estimates.
Use these day-end areas to plan lodging; the map pins are orientation points, not hotel recommendations. The final day can be your departure day.
Choose your dates around the experiences below rather than assuming one season fits the entire trip. These notes come from the linked route guides; check current forecasts and official schedules.
US 41 out through Stones River, where the Hazen monument has stood since 1863, then the back roads to Bell Buckle's one block and Shelbyville's Walking Horse barns, and down to Lynchburg for the distillery tour; book it, the summer weekends sell out. Overnight Lynchburg.
A one-block railroad town of quilt shops and the Bell Buckle Cafe, live music Saturdays with WLIJ on the air; the Webb School's 1886 campus; the RC Cola–MoonPie Festival in June, for the record.
New Year's 1862–63, the bloodiest battle in Tennessee for its size, and the oldest intact Civil War monument in the country, the Hazen Brigade's of 1863. The Slaughter Pen and Hell's Half Acre make a short loop.
The 'Walking Horse Capital of the World' stages the breed's world championship over eleven days ending Labor Day weekend; the rest of the year the barns and the Blue Ribbon Circle are the show.
Est. 1866, in a county that has been dry since Prohibition; tours walk from the cave spring to the charcoal mellowing vats, and Miss Mary Bobo's on the square serves a reservations-only midday dinner the way the boarding house did.
Rosecrans's nine-day maneuver in June 1863 pushed Bragg out of Middle Tennessee almost without a battle, finished the week of Gettysburg and Vicksburg and was forgotten for it; the Beechgrove and Hoover's Gap markers tell it.
Navigate day 1 in Google Maps ↗ · via Stones River National Battlefield, Bell Buckle, Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration
TN 55 to Tullahoma with the Cascade Hollow dogleg for George Dickel, the Old Stone Fort's two-thousand-year-old walls at Manchester, then up the plateau to Monteagle's Chautauqua and Sewanee's bluffs. Down the grade in time for the Nickajack bat flight at dusk. Overnight Chattanooga, on the river.
The other Tennessee whisky, spelled the Scots way and chilled before charcoal filtering since 1870, in a hollow prettier than Lynchburg's and a tenth as crowded.
A 2,000-year-old Woodland-period enclosure on a peninsula between the Duck and Little Duck rivers, with waterfalls on three sides; the walls' purpose is still argued, the walk is not.
Rosecrans's nine-day maneuver in June 1863 pushed Bragg out of Middle Tennessee almost without a battle, finished the week of Gettysburg and Vicksburg and was forgotten for it; the Beechgrove and Hoover's Gap markers tell it.
All Saints' Chapel, the Memorial Cross overlook, the Perimeter Trail's twenty miles along the bluffs; the Writers' Conference in July; Morgan's Steep at sunset.
A Chautauqua that never stopped: 160 Victorian cottages on a gated 100 acres, an eight-week summer platform season since 1882, and the Mountain Goat Market across the road for lunch.
Navigate day 2 in Google Maps ↗ · via Tullahoma Campaign, George Dickel, University of the South, Monteagle Sunday School Assembly, Fiery Gizzard, Dutch Maid Bakery, Nickajack Cave, Point Park, Lookout Mountain
US 41 south on the Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign route, the 1864 campaign in order: Chickamauga, Tunnel Hill and Dalton, the fields at Resaca, and the actual General at Kennesaw before the city.
The 1850 Western & Atlantic tunnel, first through the southern Appalachians; the General steamed through it in the 1862 chase and you can walk the bore.
The Atlanta Campaign's first pitched battle, May 1864; a new state historic site finally protects the trench lines.
The 1847 depot town where the Texas joined the Great Locomotive Chase, famously running backward at full steam.
The actual General locomotive of the 1862 raid, star of Buster Keaton's and Disney's versions both, enshrined blocks from where it was stolen.
Johnston's mountain line and Sherman's costly June assault; earthworks on top, Atlanta's skyline on the horizon.
Navigate day 3 in Google Maps ↗ · via Tunnel Hill, Resaca Battlefield, Adairsville, Southern Museum & the General, Kennesaw Mountain NBP, Marietta Square, The Big Chicken
Nashville to Atlanta on the Dixie Highway is a 3-day trip of about 340 miles.
It starts in Nashville.
It chains US 41: Dixie Highway, Nashville to Chattanooga and US 41: Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign.
Day 1: Lynchburg; Day 2: Chattanooga; Day 3: near Atlanta, GA.