Off the beaten path in West Tennessee

From Elvis and country music to Jack Daniels whiskey and the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee is full of major attractions. But here's a list of five off-the-beaten path spots, specifically in West Tennessee, worth considering.

The Bird Dog Foundation Inc.

The Bird Dog Foundation Inc. in Grand Junction, about an hour east of Memphis, is home to the National Bird Dog Museum, National Retriever Museum and the Field Trial Hall of Fame. Visitors to the center can learn about more than 40 breeds of bird dogs, the area’s annual Field Trial’s champions and enjoy exhibits on some of the sport’s most famous dogs.

The center is open every day but Monday. There is no admission charge but donations are accepted.

Buford Pusser Home and Museum

McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser’s exploits in cleaning up crime with his “big stick” have been lifted to legendary heights, thanks to a series of “Walking Tall” movies.

The museum in Adamsville, about an hour south of Jackson, is open daily. Admission is $5 for adults and $2 for students. A tour includes a short video and guided tour of the museum.

Alex Haley House Museum

Were you one of the millions of TV viewers in 1977 who made “Roots” the most watched event in TV history? The miniseries was an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the same name, written by Alex Haley. You can learn about Haley and his books at the Alex Haley House Museum.

The house, about an hour north of Memphis, was home to Haley’s grandparents, where he lived for eight years. The property is also Haley’s final resting place.

The museum is open daily except Mondays. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students and children.

National Ornamental Museum

Memphis is home to the nation’s only center devoted to the preservation of metalwork. The museum, overlooking the Mississippi River, displays exhibits and a working blacksmith on the grounds.

The museum is open daily except Mondays. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $3 for students and children ages 5 and up.

Ghost River Brewing

Memphis’ lone brewery is also a charitable organization that donates a percentage of all sales to the Wolf River Conservancy, a group dedicated to protecting the river that flows through southern Tennessee and the Memphis area’s famous drinking water.

Learn about the brewing techniques and taste a few beers at this relatively new operation at 827 S. Main St. Free tours are offered every Saturday at 1 p.m. Reservations are required.

Little Rock: Worth a look for presidential history, culture

Before Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, Little Rock, Ark., wasn't known for much to travelers.

Sure, it's the big city (along with Memphis and Dallas) to Arkansans (I should know, I lived about 30 minutes north of Little Rock until age 14). We shopped there, went to the hospital there, attended minor league baseball games there and even took school field trips to the zoo and museum there.

Unless you're a regional traveler who lives no more than a couple hours from Arkansas' state capital, though, there really wasn't much reason to visit. 

But things began to change, particularly in Little Rock's Downtown, in the early 1990s when work began to create River Market, which opened in 1996. Revitalization efforts have continued with a 2.5-mile trolley (pictured above passing the River Market) that began operation in 2004, the opening of Verizon Arena in 1999 just across the river in Downtown North Little Rock and, the biggest of all, the opening of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum in 2004.

Clinton Library

The five-story main building, which as you can see resembles a mobile home, houses the museum. The center features a number of exhibits on Clinton's time as president and serves as a good overview of world and domestic history from the 1990s.

Today, the heart of Downtown Little Rock along the southern banks of the Arkansas River is centered on Markham Street/President Clinton Avenue and its art galleries, a number of restaurants and the Clinton-related sites. The River Rail connects all the major sites in Little Rock and, via the Main Street Bridge, loops Downtown North Little Rock.

Anchoring Markham Street is the River Market, which features two open-air pavilions, a 10,000-seat amphitheatre, an indoor bazaar, shops and a farmers market.

Little Rock's Rosemont Inn

Little Rock is worth a look, particularly for a weekend getaway. Lodging options abound from upscale hotels to quaint bed-and-breakfast inns. We've stayed in the Rosemont Inn & Cottages, a bed-and-breakfast inn just a couple miles south of the river. 

Arkansas tends to be the punchline of jokes, but is, in fact, a state filled with beauty and a number of great outdoors activities, several of which can be found just outside Little Rock.

Reinventing Panama City Beach's tackiness

Setting up for the day in Panama City Beach

With the warming temperatures thoughts are beginning to turn toward outdoor activities and maybe even summer travel plans. For many, that includes a trip of some sort to the beach. And here in the South, that means the Gulf Coast, particularly the stretch from Gulf Shores, Ala., eastward through the Florida beach communities of Pensacola, Ft. Walton Beach, Destin, Seaside and Panama City Beach.

That last one can be a tricky beach destination for some to consider. Many think of Panama City Beach as the epicenter of college spring break and the epitome of tackiness. But while it remains a spring break destination, Panama City Beach has been reinventing itself over the past 10 years.

It started with a complete beach restoration after hurricanes in the 1990s eroded the beach. Then, many of the small mom-and-pop motels began coming down, replaced by towering condominium towers. (I'm not going to argue for the existence of condo high-rise towers, by the way, but I will say they look better than the truly seedy motels that dotted PCB before.)

In the past couple of years, PCB has joined the national retail craze with the establishment of an outdoor mall -- the industry calls them lifestyle centers. For the most part, Pier Park offers retail options that can be found at home in every suburb, which goes against my philosophy of local travel. But in the context of reinventing PCB, I won't argue with its existence.

The latest reinvention of PCB is the opening this May of a new airport that will feature a runway capable of landing transatlantic flights. Southwest Airlines will offer direct flights from four cities: Nashville, Tenn., Orlando, Fla., Baltimore and Houston. That will really open up not only PCB, but the Florida Gulf Coast in general to the U.S.

I will say there are two beach communities in Florida I prefer over Panama City Beach: Apalachicola Bay and St. George's Island to the east and Seaside to the west. But that's one of several reasons Panama City Beach is the perfect spot for us.

Random street view in Apalachicola near the river

We can be to Apalachicola Bay within a couple of hours along a scenic beachfront highway, where we can sample the world's greatest oysters and spend a day of walking the very quiet and quaint streets, as seen above.

Sunset in Seaside

We can drive 20 minutes west and enjoy the entertainment, atmosphere and shopping of Seaside without paying the high prices of staying there. And another 20 minutes west is Destin and its Silver Sands Factory Stores.

This is not my most ideal trip, although I believe everyone needs a trip to a beach, a mountain, a lakeside cabin; somewhere quiet to unwind and enjoy life instead of discovering new cultures and cities.

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