The best stretches of the American South are not measured by how quickly you get somewhere, but by how often you pull over. Across nine states, scenic byways, mountain backroads and small-town main streets are turning ordinary drives into something worth lingering over, whether that means floating a spring-fed river, tracing a mural trail through a forgotten downtown or watching sunset from a rooftop bar.
Travel South USA has mapped out a run of road trips through the region that reward slow travel and a willingness to detour, with each state offering a distinct reason to keep the windows down.
Water, rock and wilderness through the Ozarks
Missouri’s Ozarks pack an unexpected amount of natural drama into one drive. Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park uses ancient volcanic rock to carve out natural chutes and swimming holes, while nearby Elephant Rocks scatters granite boulders more than a billion years old across the landscape. From Taum Sauk Mountain, Missouri’s highest point, the route continues to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, where wild horses roam free through Shannon County and the water is calm enough to float for hours. Treehouses and rustic cabins along the way make it easy to turn the drive into an overnight trip rather than a day out.
Three cities, three very different soundtracks
Atlanta, Nashville and New Orleans each offer a distinct version of a Southern city road trip. In Atlanta, the Jackson Street Bridge, made familiar by The Walking Dead, and the sunset views from 9 Mile Station give the skyline its own photogenic angle. Nashville trades skyline for neon and live music along the Cumberland River, while New Orleans swaps postcard shots for beignets, rooftop cocktails and jazz drifting down Frenchmen Street. Strung together, the three cities read less like a checklist and more like a study in how differently the South sounds from one state to the next.
Coastlines, moss and quieter backroads
South Carolina’s Lowcountry rewards a slower pace, from Charleston’s Rainbow Row to the sprawling, centuries-old Angel Oak on Johns Island and the bleached driftwood scattered across Botany Bay. The route continues through Beaufort and Bluffton to the moss-covered ruins of Old Sheldon Church, finishing at Hilton Head’s Harbour Town Lighthouse, with Spanish moss, Gullah cuisine and waterfront seafood filling in the gaps between stops.
Further west, Alabama’s north-to-coast drive moves from Decatur, birthplace of Alabama White Sauce at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, through Birmingham’s murals and Auburn’s horse country, before finishing on the Gulf Coast, where Mobile’s sunsets give way to Gulf Shores’ sugar-white sand.
Murals, music history and unexpected detours
Tennessee’s cities and small towns have quietly turned themselves into open-air galleries, with large-scale murals reflecting local music, food and history at every turn, offering a reason to build an entire road trip around public art rather than the state’s usual landmarks.
Mississippi’s stretch of the Blues Highway carries its own soundtrack, from the legendary Crossroads in Clarksdale and live blues at Ground Zero to Vicksburg’s riverfront murals, Elvis’s birthplace in Tupelo and Faulkner’s Oxford. Come October, the Natchez Balloon Festival adds hot-air balloons to the mix. In western Kentucky, Paducah’s more than 60 floodwall murals trace the city’s history alongside the National Quilt Museum, while Purple Toad Winery and pit-smoked barbecue further west give travellers reason to slow down and stay a while.
North Carolina takes a different approach entirely, turning the road into the main event. The Tail of the Dragon squeezes 318 curves into just 18 kilometres, while the 98-mile Waterfall Byway passes more than 200 cascades, including Dry Falls, where visitors can walk behind the curtain of water. Further north, the Highlands of the Roan offer rare high-altitude views of autumn colour, and Cheoah Dam adds a detour familiar to fans of The Fugitive.
Louisiana closes the loop with its own set of surprises: Antique Alley in West Monroe, meat pies at Lasyone’s in Natchitoches, contemporary art at Alexandria’s River Oaks Art Center, and Baton Rouge’s 176-year-old Old State Capitol rising like a Gothic castle above the Mississippi River. Honey Island Swamp adds a wilder final chapter, with wildlife and folklore replacing the state’s earlier main streets and galleries.
