An American South Road Trip: Miles, Maps, and Meanderings (Part 1)
Spending time in the states of: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia
Potentially part of a 3 blog post series.
Written February 18, 2025
In May of 2019, my partner and I flew into Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to begin a nine-day road trip east to Atlanta, Georgia where we’d fly home. Having some experience with a week long road trip in 2016, we knew that loose plans work best for us.
How I plan our trips
For me, it all starts with some free time, a road map and a spreadsheet. With a cup of hot coffee early on a Saturday or Sunday morning when I know I’ll have a few hours of quiet time. Often the planning starts months in advance if not a year with frequent revisits to tweak the plans.
I’ve found that having a few goals to aim for helps make planning easier. For instance, one of our goals is to watch a baseball game at every MLB stadium. Another is to stay overnight in each US state. Whenever I get the urge to map out a road trip, I am energized seeing what potential road trips we could attempt. Depending on where we start, and the direction we plan to drive, a whole different adventure could unfold!
See that center photo there? The one with the 3 different signs? That's what I mean, depending on the direction we go, there is a whole new story to unfold.
Into the Nitty-Gritty of Route Planning
Having decided to travel through the south in the Spring of 2019, I listed the states my partner and I hadn’t visited, then then looked at the map of the country to see what type of road trip we could arrange for 7-9 days. By 2019 the only southern states we had visited were along the east coast, like Florida and Georgia. Reminiscent of my time planning our Route 66 road trip, I was tickled to see that we could drive merely 4 hours a day and visit another city in a different state. With a little creativity, I worked out a drive that included cities in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. The next step was to do some research on flights from NYC to any of those states.
As I learned when trying to arrange a direct flight into Kansas City from New York a few years earlier, some direct flights just aren’t possible. That’s ok, we can be flexible. I went back to the map and saw Dallas, Texas. If we started in Dallas, we could see the Texas Rangers play a game, and cross off another baseball stadium from our list. As luck would have it, NYC had direct flights to Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Next step, find out what days the Rangers are playing at home and that can help us lock in a travel week.
With the week and game day in Texas tentatively locked in, that meant we’d be driving from west to east, can we add Atlanta Georgia? There are plenty of flights between Atlanta and NYC.
Really, the biggest challenge was trying to squeeze everywhere into our 9 days off. For instance, how could we go to Arlington Texas (where the TX Rangers play), without seeing Dallas and Fort Worth? How could we watch the Rangers play in their home stadium and miss out on seeing the Houston Astros play less than 4 hours away? And what about Memphis, Tennessee? It’s 2 hours from Little Rock, Arkansas! Do I make separate trips? Then what do I cut out from this trip? Decisions. Decisions.
Finally, a plan came together. It included one full day of travel, 6 states, and two baseball games in different cities. Yep, I added Memphis. We’d get a glimpse of at least 7 different cities in 6 different states.
By the time we left for our trip, we had a short list of things to see or places to go to for each of the cities. If we did just one of them, I thought it would make our stay memorable. Aside from the two baseball games in Texas, nothing was set in stone. Our list for this trip included: museums, historic hotels, and one or two restaurants that seemed interesting.
We started in Dallas Texas, and ended in Atlanta Georgia
As you can tell from my map, this trip was not at all time efficient! But we wanted to see as many places as we could within our 9 days. Even if it meant we’d only get a glimpse of each place, which is pretty much what happened.
Mileage and Time
Saturday May 18, 2019 – drive from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Dallas TX – to Holiday Inn – Arlington NE – Rangers Ballpark by IGH – Arlington, TX
We drove back and forth to Dallas TX in the evening
Approx. 1 hour (40 miles) using I-30 (mostly)
Total for the day: approx. 1 hour and 21 minutes (50 miles)
Sunday May 19, 2019 – we stayed local
Round trip drive from Holiday Inn – Fort Worth, TX
90 minutes (46 miles)
Total for the day: approx. 1 hour and 30 minutes (46 miles)
Monday May 20, 2019 – drive from Arlington/Dallas TX to Houston, TX
3 hours and 45 minutes (259 miles) using I-45 mostly
Tuesday May 21, 2019 – drive from Houston, TX to Little Rock, AS
6 hours and 53 minutes (434 miles)
Wednesday May 22, 2019 – drive from Little Rock, AR to Memphis, TN
2 hours (136 miles)
Thursday May 23, 2019 – drive from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MS
3 hours (210 miles) (mostly south on I-69)
Friday May 24, 2019 – drive from Jackson, MS to Birmingham, AL
3 hours and 25 minutes (237 miles) (mostly on 1-20)
Saturday May 25, 2019 – drive from Birmingham, AL to Atlanta, GA
2 hours and 16 mins (153 miles) (mostly I-20)
Total mileage for the week 1527 (give or take)
Total time in car for the week: 22.9 hours
Rental Car
Having had great success with my father’s advice to rent a larger vehicle, I reserved an SUV using Alamo. I’ve used Alamo for several trips to Florida in the past, and I’ve always had a good experience. Upon arrival at the Alamo car rental place at the airport, we went through the standard check-in process, but this was the first time we were ever offered hail insurance. I paused and looked at my partner who seemed as genuinely perplexed as I was. I mean, we were driving across several southern states, was hail a potential issue? Although I asked the counterperson her opinion, we ultimately decided against the hail insurance. We were told to go choose a car from one of the rows in their garage. After some trial and error, we opted for a silver-grey Jeep Cherokee.
Highlights from the Road
The drive:
Longest drive was from Houston, TX to Little Rock, AR. With water very close to the highway due to flooding, it felt very isolated. The most scenic part of the drive was between Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA by the Coosa River. We didn’t stop but we’ve discussed returning to the area more than once.
The roadway along I-49 near Shreveport, LA.
The food: We stopped at a few great places to eat. Stickyz in Little Rock, AR, The Ironhorse Grill in Jackson, MS, and Charlie Vergo’s Rendezvous in Memphis, TN.
The surprises: Visiting Graceland. This was originally on my list of things to do, but I dropped it halfheartedly. Flight cancellations (hey! Not all surprises are good). When we arrived in Atlanta, GA I checked my phone to find an email that our flight to NY the next day had been cancelled. I spent close to an hour on the phone trying to arrange another flight back.
Best hotel for the week: It’s an unfair contest, because I chose where we stayed in each place, but The Peabody in Memphis, TN was my favorite. It’s grand, it’s historic, it had ducks…
I plan to follow up this post with 1-2 more that give a brief overview of what we did and saw in each of the cities we've visited. I've already written a longer blog post about most of the cities from this road trip, so you can check those out too!
Photo 1: Outside Graceland mansion - Memphis, Tennessee
Photo 2: It's not what you think! The truck in the photo is being towed in front of us
Photo 3: Inside Stickyz Chicken Shack in Little Rock Arkansas
Things I learned from planning this trip: Ahhh!! So many places to visit and not enough time. I so would have loved to drive to San Antonio and Austin in Texas. I’d have liked to stay in Houston longer than a night too.
Things I learned from experiencing this trip: Some states/cities require more time to absorb their beauty. This was most definitely true of Mississippi and Alabama. Maybe if we visit different cities in each of these states, we can gather a collective experience.
Things I keep in mind when organizing a trip for myself: Try to plan at least one thing fun to accomplish with the limited time in each place. Stay at a historic hotel, eat at a recommended local eatery, visit a museum about the area. I don’t want to sit in a hotel room and watch time tick away while in a city I’ve never visited.
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