Nashville - New York road trip

[Nathalie.vw]

Hello

My mother and I are heading on a road trip from Nashville to New York.
We have 10 days for the trip.
None of us are great planners, and being from Europe, some tips would be appreciated for this US road trip.

We are not huge on the museums, but really are just looking for nice, cozy places, towns with charm, nice places to see or whatever else that you could recommend.
Any other tips for newbies that don't know much?

[AZBuck]

Willkommen! Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

As it happens, the regions between Nashville and New York contain some of the most charming small towns in the United States as well as some very scenic, and easy, hiking trails. While you could make the drive between those two cities in a day-and-a-half using the Interstates (Autobahns) it would be much more relaxing, and suit your stated travel style better, if you took smaller roads through the countryside. The 'problem' is that there are so many alternative routes available to you that I can't possibly cover them all. So I'm just going to give you a rough outline of what one such drive would look like and invite you to comment on it, say what you like and don't, and then we can work on fine tuning it just for you.

I'd probably start by heading north from Nashville on US-31E up to Cave City, KY and take one of the guided tours of Mammoth Cave, then make use of the Cumberland Parkway, part of a road system unique to Kentu8cky, and KY-80 to head east into the Appalachian Mountains. Taking roads such as US-23/US-119/WV-73/WV-10/WV-85/WV-99/WV-3, your next specific target might be something like New River Gorge near Beckley WV. If you continue east from there (I-64 would be a good choice for speed, or just a good 'pointer' to the right direction), you'll come to one of my favorite small cities, Lexington VA. It should then be relatively easy to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive from there. Eventually, you'll want to come down off the mountain ridges and into the 'Great Valley' and use US-15 north through some more cute and historic towns such as Winchester VA, Harpers Ferry WV, Frederick MD and Gettysburg PA. Next up would be US-30 (the Lincoln Highway) east through York, Lancaster and Ephrata PA. As you progress towards Ephrata, you might want to get off onto some very local back roads, as this is Amish country. But at this point you'll start to run out of open country and small towns, and unless you're willing to do some serious back road driving/navigating, you're probably better off just taking relatively main roads such as US-222/US-22/I-76 into New York.

AZBuck

[Nathalie.vw]

Thank you so much for your input AZBuck!
I really appreciate it. I hadn't even really thought of KY!

I was thinking of first heading East to at least North Carolina, as the coast seems very nice, and we are going at the start of August, so some coast might be nice.

[glc]

If this is a round trip, go inland one way and along the coast the other way.

[AZBuck]

You can, of course, include a stretch or two of beach on your journey if you really want to, but just understand that it will be difficult to do that and keep to smaller, slower-paced towns. Most of the seashore between say Washington and New York is heavily built up and extremely crowded in the summer. So you'll either have to share your stretches of beach with significant numbers of other people or add quite a few miles to your journey. If you have ten days to get from Nashville to New York, then you certainly have time for the latter.

What I'd suggest in that case is that from southeastern Pennsylvania you head for Elkton MD and take MD-213/MD-313 down the Delmarva Peninsula (between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays) to the Vienna MD area, then US-50/US-13/VA-175 to Chincoteague VA. This is a great little out-of-the-way location that not only has beaches, but also a national wildlife refuge as well as a NASA launch facility. When done here you can head north, hit an unsullied bit of ocean front, and then continue along the coast (getting more congested as you go, unfortunately) to Lewes DE and a ferry over to New Jersey. Once across Delaware Bay, US-9 is far enough inland that you should be able to miss most of the beach traffic on the way to New York.

As I said in my first post, there are many, many options, but I think the ones I've outlined for you stand the best chance of fulfilling your desires for your trip.

AZBuck