16th April 2026

Hello and greetings once more from London.  My amazing Southland tour of the USA has now come to an end, and I completed a rather large but incredibly fun grand Southland circular Road Trip.  Eight states in fifteen days, it’s been incredible.  And what really stood out the most for me was the incredible friendliness, warmth and hospitality of these Southlanders.  I have loved their adorable accent, and have come to understand why they call this area “The Soul of America”.

I had a couple of final days of exploration left, which I will relate here, as I contemplate these fantastic couple of weeks of travel, and plan my US Easter trip 2027 already!  I’m already looking forward to visiting another part of this fantastic and hugely diverse country.

Leaving Memphis behind, I was heading eastwards.  I learned later that while slightly safer now, Memphis used to be considered the murder capital of the USA, as mentioned in my last blog.  A bit more research got me learning that New Orleans is also up there too.  This didn’t surprise me considering the vibe I felt in certain parts of both cities, but I’m happy to have found out these facts later.  I guess the Southland also has its troubles, and I’m glad I got to see its shiny parts mostly.

I drove once more through the state of Mississippi, pretty much across the whole northern part, and then into northern Alabama.  The quality of the roads notably improved straight away over this state line, with smooth riding and no constant juddering.  Mississippi is considered the poorest of America’s 50 states, and the roads felt testament to that.

I was heading to Sheffield, Alabama!  Having visited Sheffield, Massachusetts, four years ago, I was so excited to be visiting the southern one!  Part of the urban conurbation forming Muscle Shoals, centre of the Alabaman music scene, Sheffield had a gorgeous, cutesy town feel to it, with very friendly people.  So-called as its original founders had intended it to have an industrial basis, like its British counterpart and my home city, but it never really amounted to much.  Today it appears a sleepy, friendly, well-sited city, on some attractive rocky outcrops and bluffs overlooking the lovely Tennessee River below.

After a few photos of Sheffield, I continued further eastwards, back over the border into Tennessee again, and onto Lynchburg, Tennessee.  This place is undoubtedly made most famous by a certain man named Jack Daniel (1849 – 1911), who found a cool water spring here, and land ready, able and willing to grow the crops needed to make one of the world’s favourite spirits, whiskey!  It’s what I drink if there’s no brandy, the Pepsi to my Coke, and I really enjoyed the guided tour of the place.

No photos were allowed inside the buildings for fear of electrical equipment sparking off the highly inflammable liquid.  I joined a friendly tour group, and got talking to a seminarian group from Dallas, Texas.  We learned about the importance of dripping the drink through charcoal and allowing it to brew in barrels over several years to gain its special flavour and colour.  Lynchburg is in Moore County, which is fascinatingly a “dry county”, and has been since prohibition ended nationwide in 1933.  But they still allow production of this special spirit here, and every Jack Daniel’s bottle that is drunk around the world is in fact produced here, using only the spring water that is still springing from the cave that we also visited.

I didn’t take part in the tasting session sadly, as although they ensure you are not given enough to take you over the legal limit, I always avoid drinking anything at all when I’m driving.  It was very tempting though to watch everyone delight in the tasting, but I was still glad I didn’t.  You weren’t allowed to take any away either, and no soft drinks were offered as an alternative, except for a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s labelled water used to assist with the tasting.  I did feel a bit disappointed with this to be honest, and thought they should have offered a discount for such a tour.  Nevertheless, I loved being there, and the guide was brilliant and very friendly.

After the tour, I took a brief walk around the lovely old historical Lynchburg downtown area nearby, filled with lots of old-style saloon buildings, and home to the only traffic light in the county!  It was a small town.  One of the things the tour guide said to us all at the end was “thank you for coming to visit us here, in the middle of nowhere”, which is pretty much true.  Lynchburg was lovely, and the Jack Daniel’s Distillery there pretty much makes it what it is.

Finally for the day, after a Waffle House late lunch in Manchester, Tennessee, I drove on to my final stop on this rather long driving day.  Chattanooga!  It was a lovely drive there through the rolling forested hills, mountains and lakes of Eastern Tennessee, though my timing only allowed for the briefest of visits in town.  I got to see the great “Lookout Mountain of Tennessee” overlooking the city, famous to my mind for its part in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and the lovely Chattanooga Choo-Choo refurbished train, station, carriages and cool cafes, bars, brewhouses and restaurants.  It was all made more beautiful and attractive by the lovely light of the evening setting sun.  My Mum recommended I visited, and I was glad I did.

For my final drive on this epic Deep South Road Trip, I headed for a two-hour leg on my return to Nashville.  It was now after dark, and it had been my longest day of driving on this trip.  While eight hours in total, I was really glad to have been able to fit in all of these final sights.  The drive got a bit stressful towards the end, with the four-lane freeway into Nashville reduced to just one lane (!), with of course all the concomitant traffic.  Also including a necessary final fuel stop before returning my car, and a final Walmart shop, I returned the car with ten minutes to spare of my 10pm return time at Nashville Airport…!  That was stressful, and I didn’t enjoy that bit.

So, after 3458 miles of driving, my amazing US Deep South Road Trip came to an end.  I can certainly say I’ve seen the Southland, Old Dixie, Deep South, or the Soul of America, now!

I took a hotel shuttle to a really nice hotel near the airport, in fact my best room on this trip, and arranged a lovely late checkout of 12pm the next day.  It gave me my first and only lie-in and gentle morning on this whole trip.  Most mornings involved 6am wake-ups and 8am set-offs in order to fit everything in.  It was all so very worth it though, and I am so pleased and grateful to have been able to see and experience everything I have done on this incredible adventure.

Before heading home though, I had one final day of sightseeing left before my 8.35pm night flight back to London from Nashville International Airport.

After a lovely and well-deserved lie-in, as mentioned my first on this trip, I left my bags in the reception of my hotel at 12pm and re-visited Downtown Nashville once again.  I love going back to the place I started once more at the end of my trip, seeing it throughout knowledgeable and aware eyes the second time.

I first walked up to the State Capitol Building which I’d visited two weeks prior, and this time headed to the excellent Tennessee State Museum through the Bicentennial Capitol State Park and its adjacent Nashville Farmers’ Market to the north.  Fantastic museum, and great to put a bit of the learning on my adventures into historical and cultural context.  The Museum detailed the state’s history from prehistoric times, through Native American, early European settlers, slavery, the US Civil War, the post-war aftermath and chaos, and the ups and downs of the 20^th century, before of course finishing off with a section on Country Music.  This is Nashville after all!  I loved it!  What I found particularly interesting was learning the link between the post-Civil War southern grudges, the development of the Confederate-linked Ku Klux Klan against both the northern Republicans and black people, and the subsequent Civil Rights Movement.  It helped me put pretty much my whole two-week trip into context, concluding my Deep South Road Trip with this highly informative and educational visit seeing it all once again in a nutshell.

I took a bus back to my hotel, had my final Waffle House lunch conveniently just next door (I must have instinctively known when I booked it months earlier!), and took the hotel shuttle again back to the airport and my British Airways direct flight home.

The journey was good, and during the surprisingly short seven hours, I watched 80s classic “The ‘Burbs” which I hadn’t seen since my childhood – it was laugh-out loud fantastic!  No upgrade this time, but I got my favourite seat right at the back, and fitted in around four hours of sleep as well.  It was only three hours from plane door to home door after landing back at Heathrow, using the cheapest and quickest way that I’ve figured out over the years – a bus-train-train route.

What an amazing trip!  The Deep South was not so big in terms of standout awesome sights as southwest USA last year, but I was expecting that.  Instead it was filled with fascinating and vibrant cities, and new US history for me on slavery, the US Civil War, emancipation, and the Civil Rights Movement.  There was good fast food as always, with the discovery of Waffle House as my new favourite, good friends connected with on the way, and of course the fantastically friendly Southland people whose accent I could just listen to for hours!

Thank you America, and more specifically Old Dixie, for the memories!

Now to prepare for my upcoming mini-trip to the west of Ireland at the end of May, my super six-week adventure over the summer, a few more countries after that, and to start looking into booking my USA trip over Easter 2027.

Thanks for reading and for following along with me on my way. Until the next time, all the best for now, and see y’all again very very soon!