exploring books | NASHVILLE TO NEW ORLEANS ROAD TRIP
Concert on Wheels By Mary Ann DeSantis Photography courtesy of Margaret Littman and Moon Guides
In this newly revised Moon travel guide, the journey starts with a biscuit and country music and ends with a beignet and jazz riff. Author Margaret Littman’s “Nashville to New Orleans Road Trip” offers so much more than descriptions of roadside attractions and places to eat typically found in guidebooks. While those kinds of detailed lists are included, she also explores history, arts and culture, recreational areas, and interestingly, the places where the nation’s musical legacies began. At first glance, the book focuses on the Natchez Trace Parkway — the 444-mile route from Nashville to Natchez — but Littman veers off the parkway to explore several other iconic cities that influenced the Southern way of life. After completing Moon Guides for both Nashville and the state of Tennessee, Littman began talking to the publishers about a guidebook for the Natchez Trace. First published in 2018, “Nashville to New Orleans Road Trip” was updated this past spring. From Nashville’s Jefferson Street Sound, where legends like Jimmy Hendrix, Little Richard, and Sam Cooke played, to Muscle Shoals rhythms and on to New Orleans’ iconic jazz clubs, the route is easily a musical journey. “If you do all of the drives in this book, you’ve covered the nation’s formative music,” Littman says. 26 DeSoto
Those off-the-parkway drives include stops in Memphis, Oxford, Jackson, and the Mississippi Blues Trail. Littman’s total drive is 620 miles and she recommends 12 days to do it all. “In just under two weeks, you can wind your way from one epic music and food city to the next,” she adds. Of course, that is by car. Littman also includes a section in the book about riding bicycles or motorcycles, both popular modes of transportation along the parkway and the blues trail. Her “essentials” chapter even includes a list of repair shops. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Littman is a full-time writer who now lives in Nashville and covers stories in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, with an emphasis on her adopted hometown. She says hiring local writers is what separates Moon Guides from other travel guides.
