Natchez Trace Parkway

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Nashville

   Nashville is where the Natchez Trace begins in spirit, although the parkway itself starts on the southwestern side of the city, near the town of Pasquo, a short ride from downtown. The city sits on the Cumberland River, in a bowl of rolling Tennessee hills, and has been a centre of music since the Grand Ole Opry began broadcasting from here in the 1920s. Broadway, the strip of honky-tonks in the middle of town, plays live music from morning till late, and the Ryman Auditorium, a former church with pews that still serve as seating, is one of the most respected small concert halls in the country.

   Read the complete Nashville write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Nashville is where the day begins. Next is Meriwether Lewis Site.

2. 2. Meriwether Lewis Site

   Here the Natchez Trace Parkway comes to a monument that carries a story with a question mark at the end. In October 1809, Meriwether Lewis, famed for the expedition to the Pacific with William Clark, stopped at a roadside inn called Grinder's Stand while travelling to Washington, and in the early hours of the next morning he was found dead of gunshot wounds. The official verdict was suicide, but some historians and relatives have argued for murder or robbery, and the argument has never been settled. A tall broken column, raised in 1848, marks his grave, and it is a sober, quiet place in the middle of the trees.

   Read the complete Meriwether Lewis Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Meriwether Lewis Site comes up about 127 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hohenwald.

3. 3. Hohenwald

   Hohenwald is a small town in the Tennessee hills, and it has two peculiar claims to fame. The first is in its name, which is German for high forest, and which reflects the Swiss settlers who founded a colony here in the 1870s, hoping to make a new life in the hills of Middle Tennessee. The colony struggled, but the name and a trace of that heritage remain. The second is more recent and rather more surprising: the town is home to an elephant sanctuary, set up in the 1990s as a refuge for old and retired elephants from zoos and circuses.

   Read the complete Hohenwald write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 141 km into the recorded legs you reach Hohenwald. Next is Tupelo.

4. 4. Tupelo

   Tupelo is where the Natchez Trace Parkway keeps its headquarters, and it is a fitting place to begin or end a day on that road. The Trace itself is older than any highway in the country, a path worn into the earth by bison, then by the Chickasaw and Choctaw, then by boatmen who floated cargo down the Mississippi to Natchez and walked home through the woods. The modern parkway follows that line for 444 miles to Nashville, a ribbon of smooth asphalt with no trucks, no billboards, no traffic lights and a speed limit of 50 miles an hour that rangers take seriously.

   Read the complete Tupelo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Tupelo, about halfway. Next is French Camp.

5. 5. French Camp

   French Camp is a tiny settlement on the Natchez Trace Parkway in central Mississippi, and it holds more history than its size suggests. In the early nineteenth century, a French-Canadian named Louis LeFleur established a stand here, a place where travellers on the old Trace could find a meal and a bed, and the community took its name from him. The site lay in Choctaw country, and LeFleur's family had Choctaw connections, which made the place a meeting point between peoples. Later, in 1822, a school was founded at French Camp, and it grew into a boarding academy that still operates today.

   Read the complete French Camp write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   French Camp sits at 1035 km, about halfway. Next is Jackson Mississippi.

6. 6. Jackson Mississippi

   Jackson, the state capital of Mississippi and a city of nearly two hundred thousand people, sits on the Pearl River, and the Natchez Trace Parkway skirts it along the shore of the Ross Barnett Reservoir, a big artificial lake to the north and east. It is a southern city of broad avenues, heavy heat and deep history, and it is not an obvious tourist destination, but it rewards a curious visitor. The state capitol, a grand building finished in 1903 with a copper dome, is a good place to start, and it still stands over the downtown.

   Read the complete Jackson Mississippi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Jackson Mississippi comes up about 652 km into the recorded legs. Next is Natchez.

7. 7. Natchez

   Natchez sits on a high bluff above the Mississippi, the southern end of the long, gentle ribbon that is the Natchez Trace Parkway. About fifteen thousand people live in town now, but in the decades before the Civil War it was among the richest places in the country, home to cotton planters whose mansions still stand along the quiet streets. Many of those houses are open to visitors, and the old river landing at Natchez Under-the-Hill, once a rowdy port, sits below the bluff with a view of the huge brown river and the bridge to Louisiana.

   Read the complete Natchez write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Natchez closes the day.