Nashville

As we make our way across the country, we are finding some small towns/cities enjoying a renaissance, some that time forgot, and some still reeling from the effects of COVID. Our experiences in Nashville and Memphis are a good illustration of that. In Nashville, large employers and anchor institutions like Vanderbilt University constantly bring in new residents and visitors. The country music scene is thriving, and tourism is alive and well (perhaps thanks to all those roving bachelor and bachelorette parties we witnessed!).

Across the city, there are funky neighborhoods with fun retail and restaurants, and new developments are popping up everywhere (perhaps there could be some more organized city planning, but that’s a topic for another day). 

Memphis

We visited Memphis a number of years ago, and it felt like a ghost town—there were just not a lot of folks in the city center and few surrounding neighborhoods that had anything to offer to visitors. Our perception did not change much this time around—it just feels like the entire city needs an infusion of cash and entrepreneurial energy. Now, we did have two fabulous experiences in Memphis—listening to blues on Beale Street

and visiting Graceland (which spurred a short-lived but intense fascination with Elvis!).