9 Stress-Free Tennessee Towns For A Weekend Retreat

Some trips are about doing everything. This one is about doing nothing, well. Tennessee has a run of small towns built for exactly that. Picture a covered bridge you can walk at dawn or a lake that wraps a town on three sides. No packed sidewalks and no horns. Here are nine Tennessee towns where the whole point is to slow down.

Elizabethton

Tennessee's oldest covered bridge still stands over the Doe River, one of just three historic covered bridges left in the state. It went up in 1882, and you can walk it. That is the whole appeal of Elizabethton: a downtown that never got paved over, twenty miles from the North Carolina line, still flying under the radar. Cross the bridge into Covered Bridge Park and you have already found the town's rhythm.

Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park picks it up from there, with interpretive exhibits on the 18th century and a signed trail through the events that happened on the ground you're standing on. When the walking is done, Riverside Taphouse pours the draft. The locals drink here, which tells you what you need to know. Sleep it off at the Doe River Inn, an old home furnished with antiques to match.

Greeneville

A tailor became president here. Andrew Johnson started out running a tailor shop in Greeneville, went on to the White House, and became the first president to be impeached. The town kept his shop, and it kept its character too, choosing preservation over new development. Almost everything worth seeing sits within a short walk of the General Morgan Inn, an 1884 landmark stitched together from four old railroad hotels.

Start at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, tailor shop and all, then walk the self-guided Greeneville Mural Trail. Want the mountains instead? Margarette Falls drops 60 feet in the Cherokee National Forest, a good hike out and back. Or catch a show at the Capitol Theatre, 92 years old and a block from the inn.

Athens

The art here hangs on the buildings themselves. Athens paints quilt squares onto its historic downtown storefronts, the Patterns of the Past Quilt Trail, and you read the town block by block as you walk it. Duck into the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum, where full-size builds of a general store and a doctor's office are the pieces people remember.

Then get out of town. The Hiwassee River runs just past the edge of it, good for a lazy float. Better yet, ride the Hiwassee Loop on the Tennessee Valley Railroad, where the track spirals up the mountain and the train literally crosses over itself to climb. The Eureka Trail, laid on an old railroad bed, keeps the walking flat and the scenery going. Blue Moon RV Park, right off I-75, is the quiet place to land.

Shelbyville

The man who taught Jack Daniel to make whiskey has a distillery here now. Nathan "Nearest" Green was enslaved when he trained a young Jack Daniel in the craft, and he later became the first known African American master distiller on record. The Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville tells that story on hundreds of acres, and the tour is the reason most people come.

The town wears another title too: Walking Horse Capital of the World, anchored by a nine-acre courthouse square on the National Register. The Duck River, one of the most scenic in the state, curls around the edges. Start the morning with breakfast on the rooftop at Grindstone Cowboy, cast a line in the river, then catch a play at the Fly Arts Center. The Belmont Inn handles the night.

Winchester

Tims Ford Lake wraps Winchester on three sides. That is 10,000 acres of water and 246 miles of shoreline, which means you can boat, kayak, fish, or just drift a quiet cove while the crowds pile up on Tennessee's bigger lakes somewhere else. Back on shore, the downtown has been revived, and a walk past the restored storefronts and murals to the Franklin County Courthouse square fills an easy afternoon.

Then there is the castle. Hundred Oaks Castle is a Gothic Revival house so architecturally distinct that only a handful of buildings in the country carry the features to be called a castle at all. Catch a classic film at the restored Oldham Theater afterward, and settle in for the night at the Best Western Inn, quiet and clean.

Tullahoma

Machine Falls drops more than 60 feet and spreads about as wide as it is tall. It anchors a hiking loop that also takes in Upper and Lower Busby Falls, and it is reason enough to point the car at Tullahoma. But this old railroad town on the Highland Rim has more going: aviation history, whiskey heritage, and a walkable square painted with public murals, the LEGO Man and Bertha the Octopus among them.

The Beechcraft Heritage Museum is the surprise. It holds nearly 40 vintage planes, Staggerwings and Bonanzas and Barons, and the most complete collection of Beechcraft artifacts anywhere in the world. Swing a club at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Bear Trace at Tims Ford State Park a few minutes out, then take a room at the Grand Lux Inn, a 1905 home with a wraparound porch.

Sevierville

Dolly Parton grew up here, and there's a bronze statue of her on the courthouse lawn to prove it. But Sevierville skips the glitz you'd expect from a hometown that famous. What you get instead is mountain views, back roads, local crafts, and a downtown square built around the 1896 Sevier County Courthouse, where the statue sits.

Forbidden Caverns, with some of the biggest calcite walls you will ever see, runs guided tours from April through November, so time your visit to the season. Reds Soda Fountain and Ice Cream runs on old-fashioned style and knows how to treat a customer. End the day at Berry Springs Lodge with a hot tea on the deck and the mountains going dark in front of you.

Newport

Here is the Smokies without the traffic. Millions pour into Great Smoky Mountains National Park every year, and most of them funnel through Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. Newport sits off to the side with the same mountain backdrop and none of the bumper-to-bumper. The Pigeon River runs right through it and sets the pace.

Walk the paved Riverwalk Trail, then browse the downtown shops, including Fruit Jar Alley, where you might run into Eric "Digger" Manes from the Discovery Channel show Moonshiners. The river all but demands you rent a raft or a tube. Come summer, bring a lawn chair for the free Rhythm on the River concerts. If a riverside cabin isn't in the cards, the Best Western Newport Inn will do the job.

Savannah

Savannah keeps time with the Tennessee River. Broad water, wooded bluffs, quiet streets, and busy routines fall away fast. Start at the Tennessee River Museum, which runs the region's story from the ancient Native American mound builders to the steamboat years. Then walk the preserved ground at Shiloh National Military Park, where one of the Civil War's hardest battles played out.

Pickwick Landing State Park is next, a lakeside afternoon of fishing, kayaking, or hiking. Save the last hour for Riverside City Park and the sun going down over the water. Then check into the Sleep Inn & Suites in town, a quiet, easy base after a full day by the water.

Which One Gets Your Weekend

The nine make different pitches. Elizabethton and Greeneville are the history walks, one built around a covered bridge and the other around a president who started as a tailor. Winchester and Savannah are the water towns, one on a lake, one on a river. Tullahoma is the one with 40 vintage planes in a hangar, and Shelbyville is the one where the real story of Tennessee whiskey finally gets told. Sevierville, Athens, and Newport keep the mountains close and the pace slow. Pick the pitch that sounds like your kind of quiet, and go.