Jump to a day
Stops, in order
The Gulf port where American Mardi Gras actually began — a decade before New Orleans — plus a battleship and oak-lined historic districts.
The Crescent City — the French Quarter, the birthplace of jazz, the best food in the South, and the world-class WWII Museum. A full, indulgent week (and Mardi Gras itself if the timing lands).
- 308Day 308 — The French QuarterFull day · 5h planned
- 309Day 309 — The Garden DistrictFull day · 3h planned
- 310Day 310 — The WWII MuseumFull day · 5h planned
- 311Day 311 — The Birthplace of JazzFull day · 4h 30m planned
- 312Day 312 — Free DayFree day
- 313Day 313 — Carnival & the RiverFull day · 4h planned
- 314Day 314 — Up to Baton RougeDrive day · 1h 30m drive
Louisiana's capital — Huey Long's skyscraper statehouse — and the River Road plantations, including the one museum that tells the story of slavery.
The heart of Acadiana — Cajun and Creole culture, Tabasco's home island, crawfish, and zydeco on a Saturday night.
The oldest town on the Mississippi — antebellum mansions on the bluff and the southern trailhead of the Natchez Trace.
The Confederate river fortress whose 1863 fall split the South and gave the Union the Mississippi.
Mississippi's capital and a powerful pair of museums that tell the state's — and the movement's — hardest history.
The flat, cotton-rich Delta where the blues was born — the crossroads, a great blues museum, and juke joints still going strong.
Where Elvis was born — a two-room shotgun house — and the headquarters of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
A tiny Alabama river town with an outsized sound — the studios where Aretha, the Stones, and countless hits were cut.
'Rocket City' — where the Saturn V that took America to the moon was designed, and where Space Camp still launches dreamers.
Alabama's largest city and a crucible of the civil-rights movement — the church, the park, and a landmark institute.
The cradle of the Confederacy and of the civil-rights movement — Rosa Parks, Dr. King's church, the Legacy sites, and the Selma bridge.
A river city under Lookout Mountain — a great aquarium, a waterfall inside the mountain, and Civil War heights.
The most-visited national park in America — misty ridgelines, wildflowers and black bears, historic cabins, and the highest point in Tennessee.
The heart of Bluegrass horse country and the little capital next door — white-fenced Thoroughbred farms and the start of the Bourbon Trail.
Home of the Kentucky Derby, the Louisville Slugger, Muhammad Ali, and a downtown row of bourbon distilleries.
The longest known cave system on Earth — more than 400 miles of surveyed passages beneath the Kentucky hills.
Where every Corvette is built — a slick museum (famous for the sinkhole that swallowed eight of them) and an underground river.
Music City — the Opry and the Ryman, the honky-tonks of Broadway, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and a full-scale Parthenon. A big, loud, joyful stay.
The home of the blues, the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, and the soul of American music — Graceland, Beale Street, Sun and Stax — plus the searing National Civil Rights Museum.
Arkansas's capital — the high school that tested Brown v. Board, a presidential library, and a revived riverfront.
'The American Spa' — a national park that runs right into town, where you can still soak in 143°F waters along a grand row of historic bathhouses.
A whole Victorian resort town clinging to the Ozark hillsides — steep winding streets, healing springs, and a famous glass chapel in the woods.
Walmart's hometown, transformed by its fortune into a world-class American art museum and a mountain-biking mecca — the last stop before Texas.