This is the route for my trip to the Deep South, from Chicago to Memphis to New Orleans – and back again. It’s really a trip to Memphis for TravelCon 2022, a fun three-day event for (aspiring) digital nomads and a few old hacks such as myself. Alas, for the final presentation, event founder Matt Kepnes (aka “Nomadic Matt“) informed his audience that this would be the last TravelCon – they had three in the last five years, but COVID canceled two of them and ultimately led to its financial demise. Oh well. The event and trip were spectacular. Here’s the route and some highlights:
THE ROUTE (3,213 miles total):
- Chicago
- Springfield, Illinois: Lincoln Home National Historic Site; Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; Bloody Island, where Lincoln (almost) fought a duel; photo ops with the giant Hot Dog Man in Atlanta, Illinois, and the Lauterbach Tire Man in Springfield
- Piggott, Arkansas: Tour the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center. This is the home Hemmingway’s third wife, Pauline, the mother of two of his children. She had a really rich uncle who basically paid for the Key West home and financed a lot of Hemmingway’s travel.
- Memphis: TravelCon (farewell) conference for travel-happy digital nomads; tour of Graceland, the Home of Elvis Presley; Stax Museum of American Soul Music; Rooftop party at the Peabody Memphis hotel; Sun Records studio tour; Crystal Shrine Grotto at Memorial Park Cemetery; Lorraine Motel where MLK shot, adjacent to the National Civil Rights Museum and Central BBQ (don’t go there – overpriced tourist trap. For the real deal, try A&R Bar-B-Que or Cozy Corner)
- Hot Springs, Arkansas: Hike and go to the top of the tower at Hot Springs National Park; pickleball on the courts outside Tanners Team Sports
- El Dorado, Arkansas: Home of “The Promise,” where every qualifying student in the local school district receives the opportunity to have all their college costs covered courtesy of Murphy Oil.
- Monroe, Louisiana: Here you’ll find The Biedenharn Museum & Gardens, which has museums devoted to both the Bible AND Coca Cola bottles. The Biedenharn family invented how to bottle Coke (see their original business in Vicksburg, Mississippi). The first bottles of the soft drink were labeled “Biedenharn” rather than “Coca Cola.” The family eventually were part of a group that established Delta Airlines.
- New Orleans: I was supposed to go to the New Orleans Jazz Festival (been there, done that), but instead ended up enjoying a few days of mostly free and very local New Orleans. Bike ride on top of the levee near Audubon Park, where I visit the 300+ year old Tree of Life; visit the Historic New Orleans Collection museum, with the history of New Orleans at 520 Royal Street and the history of Louisiana across the way at 533; take a free distillery tour of the Sazerac House; ride the St. Charles Streetcar, the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world; listen to music in Uptown favorites Carrollton Station and the Maple Leaf Bar; do a self-guided, three-hour tour of historic Garden District homes; eat breakfast at Riccobono’s Panola Street Cafe – are you exhausted yet? Don’t forget Magazine and Frenchmen streets and the cemeteries.
- Hattiesburg, Mississippi
- Laurel, Mississippi: Nice little town for a break on the road to Jackson, and – bonus – this is where Ben and Erin Napier from HGTV’s Home Town series live!
- Jackson, Mississippi
- Vicksburg, Mississippi
- Natchez, Mississippi
- Hamburg, Arkansas: Surprised to find a huge Scottie Pippen mural, but hey – it’s his home town and where he went to high school.
- Eureka Springs, Arkansas
- Ha Ha Tonka State Park, Missouri
- St. Louis
- Alton, Illinois
- Wilmington, Illinois: Visited the Gemini Giant outside the Launching Pad restaurant, enjoying a bit of Route 66 Americana in this quaint town off the Kankakee River.
- Chicago: Home