Howdy Nash
Howdy Nash
The local's guide to Nashville museums. Music, art, and history, sorted so you pick the right ones for your trip.
Nashville is a music town, and its museums prove it. But the city also has serious art, a free state-history museum, and a Greek temple with a gallery inside. There is more here than the Country Music Hall of Fame, good as that is.
This guide covers seven museums worth your time, where each one is, and who it suits. Most of the music and art museums cluster downtown within walking distance, which makes a museum afternoon easy to plan.
222 5th Avenue South, downtown. The flagship. A large, polished museum tracing the full story of country music, with instruments, costumes, recordings, and the Hall of Fame rotunda. If you visit one museum in Nashville, this is it.
510 Broadway, downtown. A newer museum, in the Fifth + Broadway development, dedicated to the African American roots of American music: gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and more. It is interactive and modern, and it connects the genres that shaped everything else.
919 Broadway, downtown. Nashville's main art museum, in a grand former post office building. The Frist has no permanent collection; instead it runs a rotating slate of major exhibitions, from old masters to modern and contemporary work. Check what is on before you go.
119 3rd Avenue South, downtown. A focused, well-curated museum on the life and career of Johnny Cash, just off Broadway. It is compact, so it pairs easily with another downtown stop, and it is a must for fans of the Man in Black.
1000 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard, downtown. The free one. A large museum covering Tennessee history from prehistory through today, near Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. Broad, well-done, and a strong rainy-day option that costs nothing.
2500 West End Avenue, in Centennial Park. A full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens, built for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial. Inside is an art museum with a permanent collection of American paintings and a towering statue of Athena. It doubles as the city's most striking building.
1200 Forrest Park Drive, near Belle Meade. A 1930s estate turned art museum and botanical garden, on 55 acres southwest of downtown. Cheekwood pairs an art collection and a historic mansion with extensive gardens and seasonal displays. It is the museum that doubles as an afternoon outdoors.
Museum, history, and music heritage tours with local guides. Free cancellation on most bookings.
Howdy Nash is the free Nashville travel app. Map the museums near your hotel, get walking distances, and ask the AI concierge what is good nearby.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is the essential one, a large, polished telling of country music history downtown. If you only visit one museum in Nashville, make it that.
Yes. The Tennessee State Museum is free to enter, covering Tennessee history near Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. The other museums on this list charge admission.
The Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Museum of African American Music, and the Johnny Cash Museum are all downtown and all music-focused. Together they cover country, the African American roots of American music, and one of country's defining artists.
Most cluster downtown and are walkable from Lower Broadway: the Country Music Hall of Fame, NMAAM, the Frist, the Johnny Cash Museum, and the Tennessee State Museum. The Parthenon is in Centennial Park, and Cheekwood is a short drive southwest.
Yes. The Parthenon in Centennial Park is a full-scale replica of the Athens original and houses an art museum with a permanent collection of American paintings, plus a monumental statue of Athena.
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