Best General Tennessee Travel Guides

First used as a vital transportation link by Native Americans and later by "kaintucks" and frontiersmen, today the Trace is experienced by more than 13 million visitors a year. 25 Civil War sites 73 antebellum homes 65 museums and art galleries 78 antique shops and malls 72 bed and breakfasts 56 campgrounds 175 restaurants 49 spots for water sports and a whole lot more.

Featuring fifteen maps and forty-four illustrations, a guide to the official trails--as well as many off-trail trips--of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park offers vital information for each trail and points of interest.

With more than 280 miles of the Appalachian Trail included, some highlights are Mount Rogers, Grayson Highlands area, Laurel Fork, Pond MountainWilderness Area,the Highlands of Roan, Iron Mountain, Holston Mountain,Unaka Mountain, Greene Mountain, Max Patch, Hot Springs, and numerous others within the Cherokee, Pisgah, and Jefferson National Forests. The reader is led for several hundred miles, over high mountain vistas and into quiet hollows, through some of the most beautiful natural areas to be found anywhere.

First used as a vital transportation link by Native Americans and later by "kaintucks" and frontiersmen, today the Trace is experienced by more than 13 million visitors a year. 25 Civil War sites 73 antebellum homes 65 museums and art galleries 78 antique shops and malls 72 bed and breakfasts 56 campgrounds 175 restaurants 49 spots for water sports and a whole lot more.

Contributors include author Tony Earley, Senator Bill Frist, fashion designers Matt and Carrie Eddmenson, musican Rosanne Cash, chef Tandy Wilson, writer J. Wes Yoder, songwriter Thad Cockrell, among others. Unlike traditional guidebooks that list the same old must-see sights and touristy neighborhoods, this new series, entitled Wildsam Field Guides, gets at the soul of a city.

In Memphis Type History: Signs and Stories From Just Around the Corner, nineteen of these everyday signs are beautifully captured by painter Rebecca Phillips. Examples like the Universal Life Insurance Company, during the time of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, assassination, or the Lorraine Motel for Stax recording artists, or even the great Sam Phillips, whose desire for creative change started Sam Phillips Recording Studio. While interesting, the engineering specs of the Sputnik do not tell anything about the sign's true importance because a sign is a reflection of something more important than itself. In others, like the Chicago Pizza Factory archway, they have been recreated to express something new without forgetting the old. In the pages that follow, an intersection of art, history, and personal stories will allow an atmospheric experience of Memphis through paintings, photography, and personal stories.