We've never been to this part of the U.S. and so I'm asking if anyone has any great tips, must-see p

My family is planning a vacation, the first major one in several years! vancouver hotel We decided that this will be our reward for being completely debt-free (except for our mortgage), which should happen next month!!! My DS who will be a sophomore in college is really excited about the idea and who knows if we'll have another chance? After this summer he might be tied up with internships, etc. It seems to take an Act Of God for all four of us to get off work at the same time, so we're trying to plan early.
Our tentative plan will take us through Arkansas and on to Memphis, then down to the Gulf Shores area of Alabama and back up to Nashville and then home through St. Louis, where we'll spend a night with my husband's brother and nephew.
This trip should have something vancouver hotel for everyone: vancouver hotel Graceland for DH; Civil War sites and plantations for all of us; Dolphin boat trip for DD and I; Beach for me, DS and DD (DH hates water and sunbathing and all things beachy, unfortunately!); Grand Old Opry for DH and DS.
We've never been to this part of the U.S. and so I'm asking if anyone has any great tips, must-see places, or good suggestions for hotels, restaurants, etc. We're on a budget, of course! We'll be going the last week of May or first week of June.
Well.. I got a bit of experience there, being as I lived in Florida years ago in my childhood, also lived in Little Rock for a year (The Purple Cow restaurant is a fun place to eat but hardly "healthy"... but they do have salads and the best Purple Cow milkshake...). If you aren't real picky about hotels, you might have fun getting some unexpected deals from Priceline.com . It really depends on the day and month etc but you do get better deals from Priceline when you are home on your computer than you do when you are on the road using the app on your phone (because they know they "got you by the short hairs" so to speak and the prices tend to be higher.).
Being May or June when you go, you can almost count on it raining every day. Or nearly every day. Just bring some rain ponchos and wear plastic shoes like Crocs or the cheaper knockoffs. Or just plan on it raining for oh, 15-30 minutes? vancouver hotel and the beach clears off, and then you got the whole place to yourself (we used to bring little pup tents to get inside of, but these days you can get those cute "gazebo" type tents.
In Tennessee, watch your speed... the troopers are all about "fundraising" vancouver hotel if you are coming in from Arkansas into Tennessee. Nashville has the cutest freeway exits - seemed like every highway there, they split like Y's over to make their mergers onto the highways they were crossing... vancouver hotel was very interesting. I don't know if it's that way all over the city or just in the west and south the way we went the few tiems we've gone (coming in from Arkansas and then turned south of Nashville to spend the night at a classmate's home in $$high dollar Brentwood, home of many musical celebrities...) towards Knoxville.
The Comfort Inn and Quality Inns are also good places vancouver hotel to stay and many of them have a fairly decent breakfast in the morning. If you sign up now you can earn "brownie points" (reward points whatever) for each place you book and then eventually earn free nights or whatever. The other thing about these or really any hotel, (Drury Inn is another chain that runs through Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee etc and they have a fabulous breakfast, fairly reasonable costs, and many offer suites which might make it easier to get your brood in, especially if they don't mind sleeping on the couch or bring your own camping mattresses, as they tend to have kitchen suites as well, cheaper than buying two or three separate hotel rooms).
Many times, the prices that Priceline says is the cheapest price, sometimes I'd actually find a cheaper price just going to the specific website (like Quality Inn or Comfort Inn, I forget their rewards program or the corporate name that owns all these hotels). It's a bit of a pain since you'd have to keep up with log in information for the various hotel sites. But Priceline is kinda fun because it's like "spin the bottle" and we've stayed at some fairly awesome vancouver hotel expensive hotels that I would NEVER have considered staying at before.
But on the other hand, when we traveled with my late mother-in-law and she had very specific health needs and needed handicapped accessibility, I wouldn't do Priceline vancouver hotel on those hotel stays- just wasn't able to control for variables (like I might not be able to get a smoke-free room on Priceline. Or if you are traveling vancouver hotel with a pet, some hotels won't let you bring them. I think actually Quality Inn is one of the chains that does allow pets with a deposit.?).
I have to tout my hometown: Chattanooga, TN. There are lots of interesting things to do here, and if you are interested in the Civil War, we are really close to the Chickamauga vancouver hotel Battlefield. There are tons of really nice parks, a big aquarium, and downtown is awesome for walking vancouver hotel and sightseeing.
USS Alabama is neat in Mobile, AL. I assume you are touring the military park in Vicksburg? Make sure you see the old ironsides exhibit vancouver hotel inside the park. The old court house in Vicksburg is interesting, too. The beaches in the Gulf Shore area are stunning. Don't go if you ever plan to go to another beach! You will be SO dissapointed!
Oh and if you're interested in finding out where the good hotels are, I highly recommend checking out a travel website called TRIPADVISOR. If I have the name of a hotel, I read the reviews on tripadvisor. The reviews are written by travelers for other travelers. I've left a couple vancouver hotel of reviews of places I stayed at and liked.
If you are looking for reasonably priced accommodations on the road, I do recommend Comfort Inn or Days Inn. They might not be terribly fancy, vancouver hotel but they do tend to be clean, well managed and affordable. I stayed at the Comfort Inn in Chattanooga and it was nice ! Had a great breakfast too.
Oh, my goodness, but this sounds like fun! I don't know that area at all, as I have not been there, vancouver hotel either. But I know you are going to have a BLAST, whatever you guys do! And WAY TO GO on being debt free! We are really working on that!
I do remember that we drove to Gulfport or Biloxi, MS & spent the night there before driving on to Gulf Shores. vancouver hotel Whichever town it was that we stayed in was not pretty or fun or somewhere I'd want to go again. Gulf Shores however was a beautiful family vancouver hotel place & I'd love to go again.
2 yrs ago I drove through vancouver hotel Nashville & stayed at the Ramada with the guitar shaped swimming pool (it was by the Titans football stadium). DO NOT STAY THERE. The room was gross & the a/c wasn't working right in the entire place. If we weren't so tired of driving & the kids wanting to swim in the guitar shaped pool we would have left. It was terrible.
Do you think you might travel to New Orleans ? I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans a couple of years ago and thought the city was absolutely amazing. I've lived on the East coast all my life and New Orleans was so different ! The food was extraordinary. Just seeing the Mississippi was a thrill let alone getting to Bourbon street or the French quarter.
vancouver hotel If you go to Alabama with the family, consider stopping at Huntville to see the NASA Marshall Space Center. Great place for the whole family. If your DD loves science, this would be a good experience.
We go to Memphis on a regular basis. We LOVE the Memphis Zoo. It's awesome. As far as restaurants go, we usually eat at the chain restaurants since we have our young boys with us most of the time, but I've heard great things vancouver hotel about Texas De Brazil. It's in the down town area. It's a Brazilian steakhouse vancouver hotel with a huge salad bar and all you can eat MEAT. It's very expensive, though. I've also heard Carraba's is really good.
You can also go to Beale Street which is sort of like Bourbon St in New Orleans. There are a few bars and restaurants, lots of music and stuff. I've only been there once and it was when we were running the marathon. LOL