The honest answer depends on what kind of tourist you are, but most first-time visitors should divide their time between downtown and Germantown, with a deliberate excursion to East Nashville on at least one day.
Downtown Is Not Optional
Downtown, specifically the Broadway corridor and its surrounding blocks, is what most people come to Nashville to see. The Ryman Auditorium, Bridgestone Arena, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the honky-tonks, the rooftop bars, the Johnny Cash Museum, Fifth and Broadway, all of this is within a fifteen-minute walk. The Walk Score for downtown reaches 83 to 93 depending on the specific block, making it one of the most pedestrian-friendly areas in the entire Southeast. Staying downtown means you don’t need a car for the core tourist experience.
The downside is that downtown on a weekend is crowded in ways that can fatigue even enthusiastic visitors. Bachelorette parties, bar bikes, and bachelor groups fill Broadway starting around 7 pm and don’t thin out until 2 am. If that’s your scene, great. If it isn’t, you’ll want a base and a strategy for escaping it.
Germantown Is the Best Base for Tourists Who Want More
Germantown sits a fifteen-minute walk from the heart of downtown and offers everything that Broadway doesn’t: walkable streets without tourist crush, restaurants that would stand out in any American city, Victorian architecture worth looking at, the Nashville Farmers’ Market, the Tennessee State Museum, and coffee shops where nobody is wearing a sash. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and feels like a place with a past rather than a stage set.
Staying or eating in Germantown while using downtown for evening entertainment is the most sustainable tourist strategy in Nashville. You get the access without the immersion.
East Nashville Is Worth a Half-Day or Full Day
East Nashville is one mile from downtown across the Cumberland River. The walk over the pedestrian bridge takes about twenty minutes. Once there, Five Points and the surrounding blocks offer the best concentration of local restaurants, coffee shops, vintage stores, and bars that aren’t primarily designed around tourists. Lockeland Springs, Inglewood, and the Shelby Park greenway all reward a morning or afternoon.
East Nashville works best as a destination rather than a base. Hotels are sparser and prices aren’t necessarily lower than downtown. But spending a day there gives you a more accurate picture of what Nashville actually is beyond Broadway.
The Gulch for a Night Out
The Gulch, immediately southwest of downtown, is high-end, walkable, and a good alternative to Broadway for people who want a night out without line dancing and shots from a boot. The restaurant density is excellent and the famous “What Lifts You” wings mural is on 11th Avenue South. It’s the neighborhood that New Nashville built for itself: glassy, upscale, Instagram-ready. The Frist Art Museum sits on Broadway at 9th Avenue, technically downtown rather than The Gulch, but is reachable on foot from either.
12 South for Shopping and Brunch
12 South is about fifteen minutes from downtown by car, and it serves a specific tourist purpose: it’s the best place to buy local goods, eat a leisurely brunch, and walk a half-mile strip of boutiques and murals at a pace Broadway doesn’t allow. The “I Believe in Nashville” mural is here. Biscuit Love launched from here. It’s curated and slightly self-conscious, but it works.
The Short Answer
Base yourself downtown or in Germantown. Visit East Nashville for at least one meal. Use The Gulch as an alternative nightlife option. Spend a morning in 12 South. That itinerary covers more of Nashville than most visitors get to in three days.
Sources
- Redfin, Nashville Walk Score data: redfin.com
- Frommers, “Neighborhoods in Brief in Nashville”: frommers.com
- Visit Nashville, Nashville Neighborhoods: visitmusiccity.com
- ApartmentGuide, Most Walkable Neighborhoods in Nashville: apartmentguide.com