# The Natchez Trace, End to End

A 5-day, ~720-mile Southern road trip from New Orleans. It chains River Road & the Felicianas and Natchez Trace Parkway.

- **Days:** 5
- **Distance:** ~720 mi
- **Starts in:** New Orleans
- **Themes:** Outdoors, History, Music
- **Routes chained:** [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road), [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)

Up the Mississippi's levee roads to Natchez, then all 444 billboard-free miles of the old Trace to Nashville — ten thousand years of footpath at a parkway crawl, one overnight town at a time.

## Why this itinerary works

Starting in New Orleans, this 5-day itinerary connects River Road & the Felicianas and Natchez Trace Parkway. It suits travellers interested in parks, coast, mountains & water; blues, country, jukes & jamborees; battlefields, the movement & the past. The day-by-day bases let you split roughly 720 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.

## Day by day

### Day 1: New Orleans → St. Francisville

Leave the city on the River Road: Whitney's sobering tour, Oak Alley's oaks, a plate lunch in the shadow of the levee. Wind up in St. Francisville by dusk — Grace Church's live oaks, a porch on the bluff, the Felicianas going quiet.

Highlights to consider:

- **Oak Alley** (Vacherie) — The quarter-mile allée of 28 live oaks, planted a century before the 1839 house. The postcard of the Old South — read its slavery exhibit so you see the whole picture. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **St. Francisville** (St. Francisville) — English Louisiana: Grace Church's mossy churchyard, Rosedown's gardens, and Oakley House, where the young Audubon painted dozens of his birds as a live-in tutor. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Destrehan Plantation** (Destrehan) — The oldest documented plantation house in the lower Mississippi valley (1787) — and a tribunal site after the 1811 German Coast uprising, when hundreds of enslaved people marched on New Orleans. The history is told straight here now. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Whitney Plantation** (Wallace) — The one museum on the river told entirely from the enslaved person's perspective (opened 2014) — memorials, first-person narratives, the Wall of Honor. The essential stop on this road; book the timed tour. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Evergreen Plantation** (Edgard) — Twenty-two cypress slave cabins in an unbroken double row — the most intact plantation landscape in the South, still a working farm. Tarantino shot Django Unchained here, uneasily. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)

### Day 2: St. Francisville → Natchez

Across the line into Mississippi and up to Natchez by late morning: Longwood's unfinished octagon, the Under-the-Hill saloons, a slow walk of the bluff at sunset. Pick up the Trace's Milepost 0 for tomorrow.

Highlights to consider:

- **St. Francisville** (St. Francisville) — English Louisiana: Grace Church's mossy churchyard, Rosedown's gardens, and Oakley House, where the young Audubon painted dozens of his birds as a live-in tutor. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Angola Museum** (Angola) — At the gate of the prison that occupies a former plantation — unsparing history, and the famous (and controversial) October inmate rodeo. LA 66 dead-ends here: 'the end of the road' in every sense. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Rosemont** (Woodville, MS) — Jefferson Davis's boyhood home, kept small and plain — a footnote that explains a lot of what follows upriver. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Mammy's Cupboard** (Natchez) — A 1940 roadside restaurant built as a 28-foot hoop-skirted woman; you eat lunch inside the skirt. A complicated icon — repainted, reconsidered, still serving legendary banana caramel pie. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road)
- **Emerald Mound (MP 10.3)** (Natchez) — One of the largest Mississippian platform mounds in North America (ca. 1250–1600) — eight acres of engineered earth. Climb at dusk and have it to yourself. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)

### Day 3: Natchez → Jackson

The Trace proper: Emerald Mound, the sunken Old Trace where you can walk the original path, Rocky Springs' vanished town. Detour into Jackson for the evening — the Old Capitol, a blue-plate supper, a juke if the night obliges.

Highlights to consider:

- **Emerald Mound (MP 10.3)** (Natchez) — One of the largest Mississippian platform mounds in North America (ca. 1250–1600) — eight acres of engineered earth. Climb at dusk and have it to yourself. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Mount Locust (MP 15.5)** (Natchez) — Sole survivor of the fifty-odd 'stands' that boarded walking boatmen — straw pallet, cornmeal mush, repeat for 400 miles. The enslaved community that ran it is named and remembered here too. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Sunken Trace (MP 41.5)** (Port Gibson) — Two centuries of feet, hooves and wagon wheels wore the path twenty feet down into the loess. Five minutes' walk, total silence, slight chill — the road itself as artifact. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Rocky Springs (MP 54.8)** (Utica) — A town of 2,600 reduced by war, yellow fever, the boll weevil and erosion to one brick church and some cisterns in the woods. Free campground; gothic dreams included. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)

### Day 4: Jackson → Tupelo

The long middle miles north: French Camp's grist mill, the Pigeon Roost and Chickasaw stands, the cypress swamp boardwalk. Roll into Tupelo for Elvis's two-room birthplace and a tamale supper on Main.

Highlights to consider:

- **Cypress Swamp (MP 122)** (Canton) — A boardwalk loop through tupelo and bald cypress knees — twenty minutes of primordial Mississippi, gators optional. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **French Camp (MP 180.7)** (French Camp) — An 1885 academy village still running; in fall they grind sorghum with mule power. The Council House Café's Mississippi Mud cake is a parkway institution. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Jeff Busby Point (MP 193.1)** (Ackerman) — One of the highest points in Mississippi — 603 whole feet. Savor the badge; the overlook at sunset is genuinely lovely. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Elvis Birthplace** (Tupelo) — The $180 two-room shotgun house Vernon Presley built; the museum and chapel beside it. Downtown: Tupelo Hardware, where Gladys steered 11-year-old Elvis from a rifle to a $7.75 guitar, and Johnnie's Drive-In's dough burger. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)

### Day 5: Tupelo → Nashville

The prettiest run of all: the double-arch bridge at Franklin, Meriwether Lewis's grave and monument, the Gordon House. The Trace ends north of Franklin — coast into Nashville, ears full of birdsong, for a last night on Lower Broadway.

Highlights to consider:

- **Pharr Mounds (MP 286.7)** (Tupelo) — Eight burial mounds scattered across ninety acres of hay meadow, built around 1–200 CE — older than almost anything else you'll drive past in America. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Tishomingo State Park (MP 304.5)** (Tishomingo) — Sandstone bluffs, fern canyons and a CCC swinging bridge — scenery Mississippi isn't supposed to have, named for the great Chickasaw chief. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Colbert Ferry (MP 327.3)** (Cherokee, AL) — George Colbert's stand and ferry over the Tennessee River; legend says the Chickasaw leader once charged Andrew Jackson $75,000 to cross his army. Respect. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **The Shoals (spur)** (Florence / Muscle Shoals) — FAME Studios (Aretha, Pickett, Etta) and 3614 Jackson Highway, where the Swampers backed the Stones' 'Wild Horses.' Add W.C. Handy's birthplace cabin and Helen Keller's Ivy Green water pump in Tuscumbia — one spur, four shrines. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)
- **Meriwether Lewis Site (MP 385.9)** (Hohenwald) — Grinder's Stand, where the explorer died of gunshots in 1809 — suicide or murder, still argued. His grave's monument is a deliberately broken column: a life cut short. [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace)

## Practical planning

Budget an average of about 144 miles per day across the whole trip, or roughly 3.2–4.8 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.

### Overnight bases

- Day 1: near St. Francisville, LA
- Day 2: St. Francisville → Natchez
- Day 3: Natchez → Jackson
- Day 4: Jackson → Tupelo
- Day 5: Tupelo → Nashville

### Best season & route notes

- [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road): Whitney requires timed tickets; do it first and the rest of the road reads differently.
- [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace): Free primitive camping at Rocky Springs, Jeff Busby and Meriwether Lewis — first come, first served.
- [Natchez Trace Parkway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/natchez-trace): Spring dogwoods (April) and late-October color are the photography windows.

## Frequently asked questions
### How many days and miles is The Natchez Trace, End to End?

The Natchez Trace, End to End is a 5-day trip of about 720 miles.

### Where does The Natchez Trace, End to End start?

It starts in New Orleans.

### Which routes does The Natchez Trace, End to End chain together?

It chains River Road & the Felicianas and Natchez Trace Parkway.

### Where are the overnight bases on The Natchez Trace, End to End?

Day 1: near St. Francisville, LA; Day 2: St. Francisville → Natchez; Day 3: Natchez → Jackson; Day 4: Jackson → Tupelo; Day 5: Tupelo → Nashville.

## Related itineraries

- [The Red Dirt Roadhouse Run](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/red-dirt-run) — 6 days, ~900 mi
- [The Trace & the Delta Loop](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/trace-delta-week) — 7 days, ~1000 mi
- [The Deep South Grand Circle](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/deep-south-circle) — 14 days, ~1700 mi
- [The Whole Hog](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/whole-hog) — 28 days, ~4300 mi
- [The Long Way to the Opry](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/music-epic) — 21 days, ~3000 mi
- [Memphis to New Orleans on US 61](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/memphis-to-new-orleans) — 4 days, ~500 mi

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Canonical URL: https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/trace-end-to-end  
Publisher: Dixie Media (Dixie Road Trip, https://dixieroadtrip.com/)  
Last updated: 2026-10-04