The first-timers guide to Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana

Embark on an eclectic Costsaver tour in the USA’s deep south and you’ll find everything from discounted cowboy boots to Elvis’ recording studios and, possibly, the next Taylor Swift driving your Uber, writes Lorna Riley

You’ll find some discarded love songs / And tear stains all over the ground

In a city where dreams get shattered / And swept to the outskirts of town

– Sundown in Nashville (Carl Butler and Pearl)

Where dreams get shattered – or dreams come true? As a first-time visitor to Nashville, I am feeling the latter while, all around me, people are striving to become stars.

I’ve arrived at my hotel, ironically enough, at sundown, about to embark on a 10-night Costsaver tour called Rhythms of the South – taking in three states hailed as the birthplace of blues, soul and rock and roll. As I wander down to dinner, I hear the most beautiful voice – it’s the server, singing between taking orders, hoping to be discovered here, just like Taylor Swift (at 14) and Amy Grant (at 15) were.

This theme is repeated during our first full day in Nashville: from the Uber driver who plays us his own tunes (check him out on Instagram: @ryan.alfred.music) to the leopard-clad seductress belting out a Guns N’ Roses song at Kid Rock’s bar on Broadway (a must-visit), and Bella who drives us, with compulsory tiaras and karaoke, to the Grand Ole Opry.

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The Opry is the longest-running live radio show in the world, celebrating its centenary next year. For this broadcaster, it’s a hoot hearing the live commercial reads but the stars are the country performers, most of whom (to my shame) I haven’t heard of until Don Schlitz takes the stage. My companions can’t fathom why I get so excited until he plays two of his compositions: The Gambler and When You Say Nothing At All. Suddenly, everyone’s a Don Schlitz fan.

Costsaver bills itself as the ultimate unpackaged tour, which means accommodation and transport are taken care of, and in each city there are also included highlights. In Nashville, that means not only the Grand Ole Opry, but the Country Music Hall of Fame (worth it for the outfits alone), and the incredible RCA/Victor Studio B. It’s where the Everly Brothers recorded their biggest hit in just one take; where Elvis recorded Are You Lonesome Tonight in the dark; where Dolly Parton recorded I Will Always Love You well before Whitney’s cover. To stand on the “sweet spot” where these iconic tracks were laid down gives me literal goosebumps.

Optional excursions are also offered, and in Nashville, I’m surprised that I’m the only one to opt for the National Museum of African American Music. For a music lover, this journey from slave spirituals through jazz and blues to R&B and rap is moving and fascinating; the interactive displays and memorabilia (Whitney’s fur-trimmed bolero, the last concert outfit worn by Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez, Prince’s Purple Rain tour jacket, Louis Armstrong’s trumpet and more) outstanding. A definite highlight.

The Costsaver experience also offers plenty of free time to explore on your own. So I take a guided trolley tour around Nashville Centennial Park and its recreated Parthenon before meeting up with fellow Kiwis for Hattie B’s famous hot chicken. We treat ourselves to cowboy boots (buy one pair, get two pairs free!) and on a whim, drop into the Gaylord Opryland Resort and its nine acres of indoor atriums. With almost 3000 rooms, it’s so ridiculously huge and posh that we can’t stop giggling, even before we’ve take a sip of the delicious cocktails at The Lounge with a massive indoor waterfall roaring in our ears: an impromptu adventure that becomes one of the highlights of our three Nashville nights.

Then I’m walking in Memphis / I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis / But do I really feel the way I feel?

– Walking in Memphis (Marc Cohn)

Arriving in the “land of the Delta blues” after a four-hour coach ride, we opt for lunch at The Flying Fish where we follow Mr Cohn’s lead and have “catfish on the table” alongside frogs legs, lobster rolls, jambalaya and in a first for us all, gator nuggets (verdict: chewy but tasty).

Strolling along Beale St afterward, we’re intrigued by a cordoned-off area where a small crowd has gathered and decided to hang around in case something exciting is happening. It is. None other than Priscilla Presley arrives, in town to open a revamped rock and roll museum. Our incredible luck in seeing this icon in the flesh is an early sign of the magic of Memphis.

She’s staying around the corner at the famed Peabody Hotel, so we stop by there to have a chocolate martini in the sumptuous lobby bar and to watch the famed March of the Ducks, who have their own apartment on the roof. The Peabody is also home to Lansky Bros, clothier to the King (and Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and more). Still family-run, Hal Lansky (son of the founder, Bernard) is working hard when we visit but takes a moment to pose for a photo even as he sells me a beautiful silk tie.

Day two in Memphis begins with another included trip, this time a traditional Southern breakfast at The Arcade (where I try grits for the first – and possibly last – time), then it’s off to the city’s most famous attraction: Graceland.

Everything you’ve heard is true. The house itself is a time capsule of lavish decorating that varies from tasteful (the peacock stained glass!) to the more dubious (the jungle room!); the grounds immaculately maintained. To walk past the graves of Elvis, his parents and grandmother, and then the more recent tombs of his daughter and grandson is sobering; and the collections of incredible vehicles, boats and planes (you can walk through The King’s private jet, Lisa-Marie), as well as myriad costumes, awe-inspiring – our four hours here barely enough to see all that we want.

Over the next day and a half, we visit Sun Studios, where Elvis cut his first record and site of the famed Million Dollar Quartet meet-up. We visit the Lorraine Motel where Dr Martin Luther King was famously assassinated as he stood on his balcony, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.

We head to the Memphis Pyramid: a huge structure made of glass, it’s bizarrely a sporting goods megastore complete with alligators, shops, a hotel and a glass elevator that takes us to the apex bar with a lookout offering 360-degree views of both the city and the Mississippi River. I see my first squirrel, my first baseball game (and come away a huge Memphis Firebirds fan), and eat my first Wahlburger (better than anticipated).

The wide cotton’s growing and the magnolia’s in bloom

Just ten miles from Natchez that’s where I’ll be making my home

– Ten Miles from Natchez (Flatt and Scruggs)

A five-and-a-half hour drive from Memphis and we stop for the night in Natchez, Mississippi: once a prominent city in the antebellum (think slavery) years but much smaller today, beautiful in places, terribly worn in others. We have a drink at the local saloon (incredibly rustic with room temperature cask wine and a great band) before dining at Magnolia Grill, the best meal of the entire trip and with the bonus of spectacular river views.

I wanna get a room in New Orleans/I wanna sing in the streets of the French Quarter

I wanna dress up/I wanna wear beads

I wanna wear feathers and lace/I wanna brush by Anne Rice

And go down Bourbon Street

– New Orleans (Stevie Nicks)

The final three nights of our wonderful tour are spent in The Big Easy, the most populous city in Louisiana with a flavour all of its own. Still recovering after severe weather events such as Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a melting pot of multicultural music and food with busking bands and street performers.

A cemetery visit fascinates with its elaborate vaults and mausoleums (due to regular flooding, no one gets buried here), and I fall in love with City Park, one of the largest urban parks in the US and with one of the biggest stands of oak trees in the world, with picture-perfect bridges and Monet-like scenes. It’s here that I try beignets for the first time: piping hot deep-fried sugary deliciousness washed down with Café du Monde’s signature café au lait.

I also take an optional excursion, heading to Lafitte for a swamp and bayou tour which doesn’t disappoint, our open boat offering the perfect view of the many alligators lured by the marshmallows the captain throws overboard.

Back in town, you can drink in the streets and plenty of people do, narrow roads awash with merriment, the ever-present smell of marijuana (legal here) and jazz band street performers. For me, though, food is the star, with a standout being Bourbon House: an ornate, detached oyster bar inside a stunning French Quarter brasserie – so good we eat here twice, with delicious jambalaya and NZ sauvignon blanc on the menu.

We visit the site of America’s first movie theatre; a voodoo market; the Musical Legends Park; and on our final night, take a jazz dinner cruise down the Mississippi on the iconic Natchez steamboat, a fitting end to our epic 10-night trip.

Special mention has to be made of Jon, our Costsaver tour director whose knowledge, sense of humour and patience was vast; and Hans, our coach driver who clocked up 1380km with us and still managed to smile every day – no more so than when he and Jon pretended our bus had broken down on the highway (filling us with dread, until we realised it was April 1).

Our Rhythms of the South tour has been the perfect way to see this part of the States: all highlights, no lowlights, and with memories to hold close forever.

Old black water, keep on rollin’

Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me?

– Old Black Water (The Doobie Brothers)

Checklist

NASHVILLE

GETTING THERE

Fly from Auckland to Nashville International Airport with one stopover, flying American Airlines.

DETAILS

costsavertour.com/en-nz/tours/rhythms-of-the-south