Classic Deep South

Fourteen nights looping out of Atlanta and back, through the states where American music was invented. The American Road Trip Company arrange the whole thing from the UK, flights and car and hotels together, and hand you a road book to drive it with.

The route goes north first, to Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, then along the Blue Ridge Parkway into the Great Smoky Mountains for two nights of black bears, elk and, if the timing is right, the autumn colour the range is famous for. After that it is Nashville for Broadway and the Country Music Hall of Fame, then Memphis, where Graceland, Sun Studios and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel sit within a few miles of each other. The Great River Road carries you down through the Mississippi Delta to Natchez, then on past Oak Alley to two nights in New Orleans.

The last stretch is the reward: Pensacola Beach and the white sand of the Gulf Islands National Seashore for two nights before the run back to Atlanta through Montgomery. Six of the stops are two nights rather than one, which is what stops a fourteen-night trip feeling like a relay.

The itinerary is a starting point rather than a fixed product. Nights can be added, stops dropped and hotel standards mixed, and departures work around your dates rather than a published schedule. Around 1,700 miles of driving over a fortnight, which is comfortable in a country built for it. It suits anyone who wants the South properly, the music and the history and the Gulf coast, without planning fourteen hotels and a flight themselves.