Nashville is Music City for a reason: live bands play every day on every corner from lunch until 3 am, and the quality of a random honky-tonk on Broadway would headline a festival almost anywhere else. It's the songwriter capital of the world, the birthplace of country music, and increasingly one of the country's most exciting food scenes.

Downtown packs Broadway's neon-lit honky-tonks, the Ryman Auditorium ("Mother Church of Country Music"), the Country Music Hall of Fame and Johnny Cash Museum all within a walkable ten blocks. Head south to 12 South for boutique shopping and the famous "I Believe In Nashville" mural. East Nashville is the indie side: coffee shops, tattoo parlors, craft cocktail bars and the best pizza in town. The Gulch adds rooftop bars and the wings-of-the-angels mural.

Add hot chicken (invented here), Belle Meade plantation, day trips to Franklin and Leiper's Fork, and easy nonstop flights from most of America, and it's the country's most rewarding music-and-food weekend. Bring boots.