The stops
1Water Valley Overlook
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 411.8, Maury County
A view across rural Maury County from the roadside. The Park Service lists no restrooms and no trail here; the stop is the view and ten minutes out of the car.
Get on the parkway at the ramp off Highway 96. North of it, the stretch over the Double Arch Bridge is closed for work on the bridge until May 2027.
- Saturday
- The parkway is open all year, day and night.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
2Gordon House Historic Site
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 407.7, Hickman County
Captain John Gordon ran a ferry across the Duck River here, in partnership with the Chickasaw chief William Colbert from 1802, and the family's brick house went up in 1818; Dolly Gordon kept the farm for forty years after he died. The house is closed to visitors for safety, but the lot has flush restrooms and a picnic shelter.
The restrooms here and at Jackson Falls are the loop's surest on the parkway; see Before you go.
- Saturday
- The grounds are open whenever the parkway is, day and night; the house itself is closed to visitors.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
3Baker Bluff Overlook
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 405.1, Hickman County
A wide view of farmland from a bluff above the Duck River's valley, four-tenths of a mile north of the Jackson Falls pull-off.
The view first, then the falls, a minute down the road.
- Saturday
- The parkway is open all year, day and night.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
4Jackson Falls
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 404.7, Hickman County
A steep concrete path 900 feet long drops to a clear pool at the foot of the falls, where Jackson Branch, captured by the Duck River, falls into the river's valley; the climb back is the effort. It is one of the parkway's two waterfalls, and the lot has restrooms and a picnic shelter.
Lunch here, from the cooler: the lot has a picnic shelter and restrooms, and the parkway sells nothing. The path to the falls is paved but steep, ten minutes down and ten back up.
- Saturday
- The parkway is open all year, day and night.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
5Tobacco Barn
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 401.4, Maury County
Leland Greenfield built the barn in 1959 from timber grown on the farm, to air-cure the burley tobacco he had grown here since 1932, a crop that took about 250 hours of work an acre against about 3 for wheat. The Old Trace Drive, two miles of the original trace, starts here, one way north.
Look into the barn and read the signs. The Old Trace Drive runs one way north, the wrong way for this loop, so leave it for another day.
- Saturday
- The parkway is open all year, day and night.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
6Fall Hollow
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 391.9, Lewis County
The parkway's other waterfall, a 20-foot drop you can hear from the car, with a short trail to a viewing platform. The Park Service asks visitors to stay off the rocks, which are slick.
You can hear the falls from the lot; the viewing platform is a short way down the trail.
- Saturday
- The parkway is open all year, day and night.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
7Meriwether Lewis Death and Burial Site
Natchez Trace Parkway, milepost 385.9, Lewis County
Meriwether Lewis reached Grinder's Stand, an inn on the trace, on the evening of October 10, 1809, and was dead by sunrise; the Park Service says the accounts support suicide. The Tennessee legislature paid $500 for the monument over his grave in 1848, its shaft broken on purpose for a life cut short, and the Park Service's walk to it along the Old Trace takes half an hour to an hour.
The Park Service's walk is a little over half a mile: the paved path to the Old Trace, a thousand feet of the trace to the pioneer cemetery and the monument, and back along the road.
- Saturday
- The site is open all year. The Grinder House cabin's exhibits are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday to Sunday, until November 28 and again from March 1; call 1-800-305-7417 about winter Saturdays.
- Admission
- Free. The parkway charges no entrance fee anywhere.
- Booking
- No booking
National Park Service
8The Elephant Discovery Center
Hohenwald, Lewis County
The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, founded in 1995, keeps its elephants on 3,060 acres outside Hohenwald, and their habitats are closed to the public. The Discovery Center on Main Street is where the public gets in: exhibits, a theater and talks, and no elephants.
Leave the parkway at the Meriwether Lewis exit, Highway 20, for Hohenwald. Saturday is the center's busiest day, and the free Third Saturday programs start at 11, before this loop arrives.
- Saturday
- Tuesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Admission
- Free; donations welcome.
- Booking
- Drop in. A party of eight or more calls ahead, and groups are not booked on Saturdays.
The Elephant Sanctuary
Before you go
Pack lunch and fill the tank in Franklin: by design, the Park Service says, the parkway has no commercial services. Its lanes are narrower than most roads, with little or no shoulder, commercial traffic is barred, and the speed limit is 50 unless a sign says lower.
As of October 19, 2026, every restroom at the Meriwether Lewis site was closed for a water leak, and the Park Service was pointing visitors to Hohenwald. Gordon House and Jackson Falls have them.
The leaves turn first at the parkway's north end, near Nashville, usually from the middle of October.
The last stop outdoors, Meriwether Lewis Death and Burial Site, ends at 2:35 p.m.. The earliest sunset there on a Saturday this loop runs is 4:37 p.m., on November 28, so the day's walking is done in daylight every week of the year it runs.
How we know
The timetable is worked out from the route and the time at each stop, and checked against every stop's Saturday hours and the sunset for every Saturday in the twelve months after the hours were read. The drive times are a router's, with no traffic: leave room.
- Water Valley Overlook. National Park Service, Water Valley Overlook. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Gordon House Historic Site. National Park Service, Gordon House. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Baker Bluff Overlook. National Park Service, Baker Bluff Overlook; National Park Service, Jackson Falls. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Jackson Falls. National Park Service, Jackson Falls. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Tobacco Barn. National Park Service, Tobacco Barn; National Park Service, Old Trace Drive. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Fall Hollow. National Park Service, Fall Hollow. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Meriwether Lewis Death and Burial Site. National Park Service, Grinder's Stand; National Park Service, the burial monument; National Park Service, his last footsteps. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- The Elephant Discovery Center. The Elephant Sanctuary, the Discovery Center; The Elephant Sanctuary, questions. Hours: as posted, read October 20, 2026.
- Before you go. National Park Service, eating and sleeping; National Park Service, safety; National Park Service, Natchez Trace questions; National Park Service, road and site status; National Park Service, fall color on the Trace; The Elephant Sanctuary, the Discovery Center.
- The drive. Valhalla (valhalla1.openstreetmap.de) on OpenStreetMap, routed October 21, 2026.
- The photograph. Jackson Falls, Natchez Trace Parkway milepost 404.7, August 2019. Photo: Fredlyfish4, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
All 8 loops
