Tennessee
Find Tennessee travel tips, stories, maps, videos and news for unusual tourist attractions and sights.
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Bush's Beans Museum
Chestnut Hill, Tennessee
Watch a video of bean-canning in action, learn all about Duke the talking dog, and discover your weight in beans. On-site cafe offers a bean-focused menu.
Military Memorial Museum
Crossville, Tennessee
Large odds 'n' ends collection of military artifacts. Extensive display on the local World War II POW camp. Helpful docents.
Sights for Oddball Excursions
Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
The forever home of Elvis, and still a pilgrimage destination for his never-lessening legion of fans.
Titanic: World's Largest Museum Attraction
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Outside: a replica of one half of the doomed ocean liner. Inside: costumed actors, crashing, freezing, drowning, crush depth family fun.
Alcatraz East
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
America's most comprehensive museum of crime. Bonnie and Clyde's movie Death Car, OJ's low-speed chase Bronco, Tennessee's electric chair, serial killer relics.
Home of Buford "Walking Tall" Pusser
Adamsville, Tennessee
The "Walking Tall" sheriff died under mysterious circumstances. See his death car and all of his things.
Backyard Terrors Dinosaur Park
Bluff City, Tennessee
Chris Kastner's 6-acre back yard is populated with life-size dinosaurs and "The Funhouse," a haunt attraction open a few days a year.
Billy Tripp's Mindfield
Brownsville, Tennessee
Brain-boggling network of towering steel girders, which the artist claims tells the story of his life.
Ruby Falls
Chattanooga, Tennessee
A 145-foot-tall waterfall under the earth -- dramatically bathed in unnatural light -- is the centerpiece of this classic roadside cave attraction.
Museum of Appalachia: Perpetual Motion Machine
Clinton, Tennessee
A rural living museum that surprises with devil burls, angel swirls, Apocalypse signage. 250,000 items.
Junior Banks' Fortress of Faith
Greenback, Tennessee
An incomplete castle hand-built by one man, and later blessed by the Lord. Themed rooms include a throne room and dungeon.
Statue of Liberation Through Christ
Memphis, Tennessee
Looks like the Statue of Liberty, but can't be -- Lady Liberation is brandishing a giant Christian cross.
Pyramid of Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
America's second largest pyramid has an indoor swamp, live alligators, and a glass-floored observation deck at its pointy top.
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
Memphis, Tennessee
Built on the site of the 1960s-70s soul label Stax Records. See Isaac Hayes' custom gold Cadillac, dance on an "Express Yourself" disco floor to videos from Soul Train.
Parthenon and Statue of Athena
Nashville, Tennessee
A majestic, full-size heathen god and temple, in the buckle of the Bible Belt. Survivor of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, now an art museum.
Lane Motor Museum
Nashville, Tennessee
Crazy-looking vehicles powered by airplane propellers, adorable microcars with three wheels, and Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car-of-the-future.
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary
Petros, Tennessee
Hard time prison-turned-tourist attraction, with former convicts as expert tour guides.
Pigeon Forge - Gatlinburg - A Mecca
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Sister tourist-towns sparkle like junk jewels on a necklace choking Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Lost Sea
Sweetwater, Tennessee
It's been lost in a cave. See the sea by boat. It's really a lake, not a sea, but it has hungry fish and helpful tour guides.
Millennium Manor
Alcoa, Tennessee
Built to survive "Armageddon and a thousand years beyond." William and Emma Fair Nicholson erected their indestructible home in 1938-45.
Tina Turner Museum
Brownsville, Tennessee
Costumes, gold records, and photos fill a museum inside the one-room schoolhouse little Tina attended.
International Towing and Recovery Museum
Chattanooga, Tennessee
The history of tow trucks, complete with many exhibits; a Wall of the Fallen honors those who died in the line of duty.
Trunkations
Roadside America's blog, offering news, rants and ruminations on the state of Tennessee
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Offbeat Landmarks and Oddities
Choice field reports and tips. Or check out: Complete list of Tennessee attractions.
- Adams: Bell Witch Cave [tips]
- Adamsville: Home of Buford "Walking Tall" Pusser
- Alcoa: Millennium Manor
- Blountville: Appalachian Caverns
- Bluff City: Backyard Terrors Dinosaur Park
- Brownsville: Billy Tripp's Mindfield
- Brownsville: Tina Turner Museum
- Brownsville: Mindfield and Master Barber Shop Menagerie Museum [tips]
- Caryville: Big Green Dragon [tips]
- Centerville: Chicken Wire Minnie Pearl Head [tips]
- Chattanooga: International Towing and Recovery Museum
- Chattanooga: Muffler Man - NASCAR Pit Crew Member
- Chattanooga: Ruby Falls
- Chattanooga: The Incline
- Chattanooga: Andrews Raiders Monument [tips]
- Chestnut Hill: Bush's Beans Museum
- Clarksville: Frank Sutton: Gomer Pyle Nemesis
- Cleveland: Bloodstained Tomb of Nina Craigmiles
- Clinton: Museum of Appalachia: Perpetual Motion Machine
- Clinton: Clinton Twelve Statues [tips]
- Cookeville: Ellie the Pink Elephant [tips]
- Cross Plains: Pink Elephant With Martini Glass [tips]
- Cross Plains: Muffler Man - Indian [tips]
- Crossville: Military Memorial Museum
- Dixon Springs: Cato Caves: Area of Mystery, Famous Pot Cave
- Elkmont: Mysterious Synchronous Fireflies [tips]
- Elkton: Giant Chicken With Chef Hat [tips]
- Farragut: Goonysaurus at Sir Goony's Golf
- Franklin: House with 1,000 Civil War Bullet Holes [tips]
- Franklin: Rusty Mechanism [tips]
- Gallatin: Muffler Man Holds Muffler [tips]
- Gatlinburg: Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers
- Gatlinburg: Fiji Merman [tips]
- Gatlinburg: Hollywood Star Cars Museum [tips]
- Gatlinburg: Blindshot Barnaby's Circus Golf
- Grand Junction: National Bird Dog Museum [tips]
- Gray: Most Powerful Musical Bi-Polar Tesla Coil [tips]
- Greenback: Junior Banks' Fortress of Faith
- Greeneville: Andrew Johnson National Historic Site
- Greeneville: Big Davy Crockett
- Harriman: Varicolored Veterans of Valor
- Harrogate: Lincoln Museum on Rebel Ground
- Hohenwald: Elephant Discovery Center [tips]
- Hurricane Mills: Loretta Lynn's Ranch and Museum [tips]
- Jackson: Rusty's TV and Movie Car Museum [tips]
- Jonesborough: Photo-Op Pillory
- Kingsport: Big John: Giant Native American
- Kingsport: Muffler Man Holding a Hamburger [tips]
- Knoxville: Killed at the Speedway
- Knoxville: Bleak House: Confederate Shrine
- Knoxville: Centaur of Tennessee
- Knoxville: Museum of East Tennessee History [tips]
- Knoxville: Giant Alex "Roots" Haley
- Loudon: The Bone Yard Family [tips]
- Lynchburg: Jack Daniel's Distillery Tour: Safe That Killed Daniel [tips]
- McMinnville: Cumberland Caverns, with a Chandelier [tips]
- Memphis: Crystal Shrine Grotto
- Memphis: Statue of Liberation Through Christ
- Memphis: Graceland
- Memphis: Pyramid of Memphis
- Memphis: Stax Museum of American Soul Music
- Memphis: Peabody Ducks
- Memphis: Tom Lee, Riverboat Disaster Hero
- Memphis: The Cotton Museum
- Memphis: Mud Island
- Memphis: Statue of Elvis
- Memphis: High School Viking Giant
- Memphis: Sun Studio: Birthplace of Rock
- Memphis: Lorraine Motel: National Civil Rights Museum
- Memphis: Danny Thomas Tomb, Statue, Mini-Museum
- Memphis: Burgers Cooked in 100-Year-Old Grease
- Memphis: Elvis's Dojo and Death Ambulance [tips]
- Nashville: Parthenon and Statue of Athena
- Nashville: Mosaic Dragon [tips]
- Nashville: Country Music Museum: Gaudy Relics
- Nashville: Johnny Cash Museum [tips]
- Nashville: Lane Motor Museum
- Nashville: Voice-O-Graph Booth: Cut Your Own Record [tips]
- Nashville: Patsy Cline Museum
- New Market: Houston's Miracle Water: Angel-Approved
- Oak Ridge: American Museum of Science and Energy
- Oak Ridge: K-25 History Center
- Oak Ridge: X-10 Nuclear Reactor
- Paris: Eiffel Tower Replica
- Petros: Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary
- Pigeon Forge: Pigeon Forge - Gatlinburg - A Mecca
- Pigeon Forge: Three Bears General Store - Live Bears
- Pigeon Forge: Titanic: World's Largest Museum Attraction
- Pigeon Forge: Hollywood Wax Museum [tips]
- Pigeon Forge: Hatfield-McCoy Dinner Show
- Pigeon Forge: Hannah's Maze of Mirrors
- Pigeon Forge: Goats on the Roof and GoatCoaster [tips]
- Pigeon Forge: Alcatraz East
- Pigeon Forge: Bear Head Entrance [tips]
- Pigeon Forge: Restaurant of Robot Chickens [tips]
- Pigeon Forge: Outdoor Gravity Park [tips]
- Powell: Airplane Filling Station
- Powell: Ciderville
- Pulaski: Sam Davis Museum, Hanging Site
- Rogersville: Memory Lane - Private 1950s Town [tips]
- Sevierville: Forbidden Caverns [tips]
- Sewanee: Natural Bridge [tips]
- Shady Valley: World's Shortest Highway Tunnel
- Shelbyville: Grave of Beautiful Jim Key, the Educated Horse [tips]
- Signal Mountain: Flying Saucer House [tips]
- South Pittsburg: Stand On Three States At Once [tips]
- Sweetwater: The Lost Sea
- Townsend: Tuckaleechee Caverns [tips]
- Vardy: Cabin of Moonshiner (Too Large To Get Out Of Bed)
- Whitwell: Holocaust Box Car with 11 Million Paper Clips [tips]