NYC to St. Louis

[haustrip]

Hi Everybody!
There will be four of us traveling from Manhattan (where we live) and ending up in St. Louis to drop our friend off at grad school. We were thinking Dollywood, Memphis and Nashville. Any advice on things we must see in those places or along the way would be greatly appreciated! Would it make sense to stop in Kentucky and do a cave tour? I just saw that on here and it looks amazing. We have no plans set in stone other than our destination, so suggestions would be helpful. We're going in August and taking about 10 days.
Thanks so much.

[AZBuck]

Welcome to the RoadTrip America forums!

Ten days is way more than enough to make the trip you have in mind and see lots of different places while you're at it. In fact, you're only looking at 3 days of driving to hit the places you've listed. So just some venues that you all might want to look at as possibilities include Delaware Water Gap, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park on your way down to Tennessee. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Mammoth Cave National Park, and that can be done as a day trip out of Nashville. The other thing you might want to do when you leave Nashville is to take the Natchez Trace Parkway down to Tupelo, MS and see Elvis' birthplace (if Graceland is on your Memphis itinerary) and finally take US-61 up along the Mississippi to St. Louis and stop to walk around Ste. Genevieve. You didn't mention an interest in history, but you will also be driving near any number of Civil War sites, and the homes of at least a couple of our earliest presidents. In fact your entire drive is rich in scenery and history as well as urban night life, so I think you're in for a great time.

AZBuck

[haustrip]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! Going to Elvis' birthplace sounds like a great idea, and Ste. Genevieve looks interesting as well. We want to take our time and hit up unusual places that is why we are taking 10 days. Enjoying the nightlife is definitely part of the plan as well.
If anyone knows of any odd or uniquely "roadtrip" type sites, I'd love to hear about those as well.
Thanks again.

I guess I'm being too vague. We want to go to strange truck stops and see bizarre road-side sculptures, ie kitshy americana....

[PNW Judy]

Tacky Tourist Traps! I love 'em myself.

I'm not familiar with that part of the country to give you any specific suggestions but this page has links to websites with a lot of good information to help you find these types of places. You should definitely check out the Roadside Architecture, Roadside America and Really Tacky Roadside Attractions links. Some of the others should also be helpful. And those websites are a hoot just to read. Enjoy!

[haustrip]

Yes! Yes! Yes! That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks so much for the link.

[PNW Judy]

I can't do a roadtrip without at least a couple stops at a TTT. :)

As your planning progresses, and you find TTT's to add to your itinerary, keep asking questions and we'll try to help you plug any holes or tweak, if needed.