This past month, Brian and I took our very first road trip together to Nashville! A couple of our friends were headed down for a weekend of fun and football, so we decided to tag along.

Brian and I are seasoned drivers since our relationship was long distance for a while, and we live in between our families in Illinois and Green Bay. But, this was our first long road trip together (about 7 hours)!

We took off work on Friday, and set our alarms for 5am to hit the road! While I did sleep for the first couple hours of our ride, the roads through Indiana and Kentucky we’re fairly scenic. Kentucky was filled with rolling hills, and Indiana had a stretch of the most windmills I had ever seen.

We arrived in Nashville a little after 2pm, and went straight to Broadway after settling into our rental home. This is where the fun started! The streets were filled with people and every other car on the road was a pedal tavern (or something like it)… And even though I have never been to Las Vegas, I could immediately see how Nashville got its nickname “Nashvegas.”

After grabbing some much needed food, we walked around and ended up at Tootsies to listen to some music and enjoy the rest of our night. The live music was incredible and so much fun to listen to, we ended up staying at the bar for well over 5 hours.

Travel Tip: Most bars don’t have a cover, but you are asked to tip the bands when they walk through the crowd, so be sure to always have a little cash on you. The bands are great, so it’s well worth your donation.

The next day was spent souvenir shopping and eating some good barbecue. After finding a Nashville Christmas ornament and a copper bracelet, we wondered into Acme Seed & Feed for lunch. Again, the live music was awesome, but their food was also delicious! I can never turn down a plate of ribs, so I ordered a half-slab with mac and cheese and corn bread.  The meat fell right off the bone, and the corn bread had a slight jalapeño kick. I would definitely recommend stopping by for some great barbecue!

We stayed in town for the Packer game on Sunday and were able to score some tickets. While the Packers had a terrible game, the stadium was pretty cool and the fans were really nice.

Overall, Nashville was a great city! We had an awesome time listening to the live music, eating the food and walking through the streets. It was a great place to hang out with friends and enjoy a night out! If you are looking for a road trip destination, I would definitely put Nashville on our list.