A Deliciously Diverting Road Trip Through the Deep South

YOU COULD drive from Nashville’s Centennial Park to New Orleans’s French Quarter in under eight hours but what a pity that would be. Opt instead to take the slower, far more scenic route. Follow the Natchez Trace Parkway and U.S. Route 61 to be transported through a landscape of hardwood forests and piney woods and across coffee-colored rivers, with a number of diverting detours along the way. Chief among them: The Mississippi towns of Tupelo, Oxford and Natchez—the latter best described as “Tiger King” meets “Gone With the Wind.” From there drop into Louisiana for a po’boy sandwich in Baton Rouge before an early arrival in New Orleans to partake of its everlasting party.