Author: Desmond Colby

There is a shallow creek in West Tennessee where the mud still holds seashells from an ocean that vanished around 73 million years ago. You…

Tennessee has a habit of tucking its best breakfasts behind old brick facades on streets most drivers pass without slowing down. I pulled over for…

Drive far enough up onto the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and the pavement narrows, the farms stretch out, and your phone signal starts to shrug….

Somewhere in East Tennessee, between the pancake houses and the go-kart tracks, there’s a chrome-wrapped building where your dinner table sits inside a real vintage…

Somewhere in East Tennessee, a two-lane road climbs past hayfields and mailboxes with nothing announcing itself, and behind one gate stands a herd of long-haired…

Somewhere past the last gas station in Tennessee, the pavement narrows, the cell signal quits, and a gravel pullout appears with room for maybe six…

Somewhere down a quiet back road in southeast Tennessee, past cow pastures and mailboxes leaning in the grass, there is a farm store that smells…

Some of the best meals in Tennessee hide on streets you would never drive down on purpose. Tucked into a stone-paved pocket of a riverfront…

Somewhere in eastern Tennessee, a big red-and-white box slides off a downtown platform and floats straight over the forest, carrying a hundred people at a…

Some of the best evenings in Tennessee cost exactly nothing but a little gas money and the patience to drive a few switchbacks. There is…

Most Tennessee waterfall hikes ask something of you: switchbacks, burning calves, a long drive up a gravel road. Then there’s the one that starts behind…

Somewhere on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, the interstate exits start looking the same, and it would be easy to blow right past the one…

Some of the best Saturdays in Tennessee start with a parking lot you almost drive past. Down along one stretch of riverfront, there is a…

Some of the best stops in Tennessee do not announce themselves with a big sign or a parking lot full of tour buses. Sometimes it…

Some of the best meals in Tennessee happen in buildings that never bothered to look impressive. On a small-town square about an hour southeast of…

Cornbread in ice cream sounds like a dare, not a dessert. But somewhere in Tennessee, there’s a small brick-walled parlor churning small batches of exactly…

Somewhere between the interstate exits and the two-lane roads, Tennessee still runs on plate lunches. You pick a meat, point at two or three vegetables,…

Somewhere in Tennessee, between a highway exit and a city park full of dog walkers, there is a temple that looks like it wandered off…

A one-lane gravel road in northeastern Tennessee doesn’t look like the sort of place where bald eagles get second chances, but that’s exactly what’s happening…

Some of the best lunches in Tennessee happen in buildings that were never designed to serve food at all. Past a shelf of cough syrup…

Somewhere in Tennessee there is a stretch of sidewalk where the walls do the talking. You park once, you walk a few blocks, and painted…

Somewhere between the interstate exits of East Tennessee, a mile and a half off the pavement, there is a country market where the air smells…

Some of the best Saturdays in Tennessee start with a half-full tank and no real plan. You point the car toward a town you can…

The first cold snap in Tennessee always catches somebody off guard, usually the kid who insists a hoodie counts as a coat. Instead of dropping…

Most people driving through eastern Tennessee point their cars straight at the mountains and never look sideways. Turn off one particular two-lane road, though, and…

Somewhere in Tennessee, tucked between a grocery store and a sandwich shop on a busy road heading toward the mountains, there is a little chrome-trimmed…

Somewhere in eastern Tennessee, a road climbs out of a busy tourist strip and keeps going until the shops disappear and the ridgelines take over….