Traveling from California to Tennessee and beyond

Be sure to stop by Jack Daniel and his friend George Dickle

Thank you everyone for your input. It is really helping me plan. I will be leaving from So. Cal and hitting Mesa to visit a relative and then on from there. We plan on being gone the month of May. Please keep the suggestions coming.

30 days sounds like a lot of time but you will find it will be gone in a flash. We did 60 days on the big circle trip over last summer from TN to the Olympic penn. then down to the Grand Canyon then down to Galveston and the gulf coast over to Pensacola then back home and it was not enough time to see and do all we wanted to. There is just so much to see and do. My best advice is to not be driving all the time. Stop in the places that interest you and stay a few days to enjoy it. Have fun.

would help to know your starting point and route.
Near Amarillo Palo Duro Canyon.
Oklahoma City: Cowboy Hall of Fame, military museum, Oklahoma City bombing museum.
Houston TX Space Center
New Orleans French Quarter and World War II Museum.
From Louisiana drive up the Natchez Trace Parkway to Tennessee and tour Nashville. or drive up through Arkansas and see Hot Springs and then go into Tennessee.
In Kentucky: Mammoth Cave National Park, Corvette Museum and factory in Bowling Green.
then back into Tennessee: Smoky Mountains National Park. Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Cades Cove. Drive to Cherokee NC and see "Unto These Hills" outdoor drama about the Trail of Tears.

I did a car trip this summer from Cal to South Carolina. The answer to your question is it all depends on what kinds of things you like. I went to the big airshow in Oshkosh Wisconsin and that took the majority of the time. But others things we did was go buy the Indy 500 track and take a ride around the track in a tour bus and went through their museum. That was fun. Also stopped by the Louisville Slugger factory and toured it and their museum. Stopped at the first KFC and looked at the statute of the Colonel! There's just all kinds of things to see and do.

Didn't say where in CA you will start from. You will probably want to do a southern route (I-40, I-10) one way and a middle route (I-70 and I-80) in the other direction. 30 days sounds like a lot but there's lots of driving involved and many things to do and see. We've had RVs for over 30 yrs and as career military have traveled a lot and there are still things we want to go to. On the southern route, there's the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, Tucson, Carlsbad CavernsMemphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville and the Smoky Mountains. On 70/80 Saint Lousis Arch, Denver, Salt Lake City, Yellow Stone Grand Tetons and Reno just to list a few.

We went east on Interstate 10 and visited San Antonio, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Disney World, Cape Kennedy, the Keys, and Charleston, South Carolina (among other places) before heading west on Interstate 40 toward home. Nashville was a great stop and Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas was beautiful. And we too had some detours to avoid tornados. There is so much to see in this wonderful country and so little time.

Nashville. And keep that weather app running!

There are so many great things to see, I wouldn't know where to begin. And 30 days? That's gonna go incredibly fast! Sounds like you are a fellow Californian. I found it very different traveling across the country, than just knocking around the west coast. Biggest thing was that the rest of the country gets weather. A couple of times we waited a day or two, even changed routes, to avoid driving in high winds / severe thunderstorms. So many great things to see!