I recently visited Clarksville, Tennessee for a girls’ weekend, and we had a blast. If you haven’t been yet, there’s so much to do to appeal to just about anyone.
Clarksville might be Tennessee’s fifth-largest city (and only a few thousand people below Knoxville and Chattanooga), but it still feels like a hidden gem. It’s packed with personality, easy to explore, and full of options whether you’re planning a visit to Austin Peay State University or just looking for a fun weekend away.
Yes, Austin Peay is located in town, so if you’ve doing a campus visit, there for move in, or enjoying Parents’ Weekend, use this as your guide for how to spend your weekend. You’ll find plenty of nods to the university in local businesses from their food and drink names to decor and more.
Visit Clarksville did host me for this visit, but all opinions remain my own. Our biggest issue was the heat, but there’s absolutely nothing you can do about that.
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Where to Stay
For a convenient and comfortable stay in Clarksville, the DoubleTree by Hilton Downtown is a no-brainer, and this is where we stayed. There are also a number of AirBnB options, but with the downtown as walkable as it is, we opted for the DoubleTree.
The hotel is located within easy walking distance of Franklin Street, the Customs House Museum, and plenty of restaurants, so we only drove to some of the attractions further away – and to The Amsterdam Cafe. It has spacious rooms, a restaurant and bar on-site, and my favorite signature warm cookie when you check in.
The hotel rates are pretty reasonable, and they have a large parking lot with free parking for the times you do choose to walk. Coming from Chicago, a hotel with free parking is always a plus for me.
Why Clarksville is worth a weekend
Located about 45 minutes northwest of Nashville, Clarksville often flies under the radar. That works in your favor, though of course there are a ton of fun things in Nashville, too.
The historic downtown is walkable and welcoming, filled with coffee shops, restaurants, galleries, and colorful murals. You can go from sipping tea in a funky teahouse (or two) to exploring life in the 1800s without driving more than 20 minutes, and we packed everything we could into our weekend visit.
Clarksville makes a great base for 48 hours of exploring whether you’re there for Parents’ Weekend at Austin Peay, meeting up with friends, or just passing through. The variety of activities means that everyone from toddlers on up have something fun to do.
There are also a ton of fab restaurants in the area, including many in easy walking distance within the downtown. I have a separate article with my recommendations of where to eat in Clarksville based on my experience there.
Day 1: Markets, Murals, and Mini Horses
We visited in summer, so there are some activities that aren’t available during colder months, but I’ll suggest alternatives we enjoyed, as well. Always be sure to check the hours and availability, as Dunbar Cave itself was closed due to spring flooding, so we explored the park but could not do the cave tour we were so looking forward to.
Start with the Saturday Market
If you’re visiting on a Saturday, make sure to head over to the Clarksville Downtown Market. It’s held at Public Square one street over from the DoubleTree from May through October.
The market features local produce, baked goods, flowers, and handmade crafts. Even if you’re not planning to buy anything, it’s fun to explore, and we walked away with some fabulous flavored lemonade and unique fidget toys for our kids.
Follow Up with Murals and Museums
Enjoy a self-guided public art walk through downtown. There are more than a dozen large-scale pieces within just a few blocks.
They’re easy to spot and offer great backdrops for photos, especially around Public Square. Pro tip: maybe our favorite was right near The Amsterdam Local Cafe (yes, it’s on my recommended list), so start out with Clarksille Starry Night if you have breakfast there.
The easiest way to do this is to download the VisitClarksvilleTN app from the Apple Store or Google Play, then choose the trails icon from within the app. There are 18 different challenge trails within Clarksville that range from coffee to music heritage, so choose your favorite, but we did the public art challenge trail.
As you complete each one, you earn a pin, and if you do all 18, you receive a Visit Clarksville tumbler. I appreciate that you don’t have to go to every stop on the challenge trails, so pick what’s most interesting to you or your family and check in there.
Head to the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center next, which is a great activity all year long no matter the weather. The exhibits cover everything from regional history to local art to hands-on play areas that aren’t just for kids across two floors and a multitude of rooms.
There’s a bubble cave, model trains and rotating collections that give a real sense of the area’s culture and creativity. I was not the only adult hanging out in the bubble cave by the way, and the art exhibits along were worth the visit.
If the weather is good and you’re lucky enough to visit during June or July, drive to Erin’s Farm where you can u-pick blueberries. They are organically grown and open only in the evenings from 4:30-7pm so it isn’t quite so hot to pick, which is a smart move.
They provide buckets for you to pick, and you can pick as many as you like. My friend and I each picked a few pounds, and they were the best blueberries I’ve had in so long – nothing like the ones in my grocery stores.
Evening: Shows and Local Drinks
If you’re visiting on a Friday between May and October, be sure to check out Downtown @ Sundown if it’s a concert night. The free outdoor music series runs every other Friday evening with fun acts that we enjoyed, and you can bring in your own food and drink (but no alcohol allowed).
Set up your chairs early because this event gets packed, and justifiably so. We set our chairs up about 5pm before we headed to dinner and had our pick of locations, but when we arrived before the show started, there was very little choice of where to sit.
Alternatively, see if the Roxy Regional Theater has a show that night. We saw Always Patsy Cline, which was really well done in a charming and relatively small theater that had no seats.
The original building is undergoing renovations, but they have a location for shows just a couple blocks away until the renovations finish. They have different shows almost every month.
You can also purchase dinner and a show or mimosa and matinee packages for $65 per person where you get a meal and your ticket to the show. Know that you have to book this at least 48 hours in advance, but we enjoyed our meal at Edward’s Steakhouse prior to the show.
If you’re not ready to call it a night, we stumbled onto Tap This and fell in love – not just because the owners are fun and fantastic people. Tap This is a self-pour taproom with 12 rotating beers, ciders and seltzers.
You pay by the ounce, so it’s easy to sample a little of everything before you choose what you really want to drink. They have all different sizes of glasses from tiny taste testers to full-size steins, and you’re welcome to pick your favorite.
Bonus: they have board games, so you can make it a low-key hangout spot. My friend and I sat outside on their balcony and enjoyed revisiting childhood playing Battleship, which was a hoot.
Day 2: Souvenirs, History, and More
While you spent most of your time in downtown Clarksville on the first day, we ventured out a little bit on Day Two. There’s so much to do in the Clarksville area, and
Morning: Relaxation and Self-Care
Grab a cup of coffee if you want, then exit your hotel on Spring Street where you can easily access the Clarksville Riverwalk via the pedestrian bridge. This two-mile-long path is paved and wide enough for bikes and pedestrians.
The path is near the river so you can enjoy the scenery, especially on the opposite side where it’s more trees and nature, as well as people watching the others on the trail. There are restrooms along the way, and you can also stop at picnic benches along the way to enjoy a quiet morning.
Once it gets close to 11am, get yourself to The Mad Herbalist, which falls into both the where to eat in Clarksville and what to do. Go there for brunch, and after you eat, let your server know that you want to create your own potion.
You can choose from making lotion, room spray, or hand sanitizer with essential oils. Note that while the website says you can only do this Thursday to Saturday, we did this on a Sunday and our server had never heard about not being able to do it on Sundays.
They bring out a wooden display of so many different scents that you can choose from to mix and match in your vial that they then use to mix up your potion. The process on their side takes 10-15 minutes, depending on how busy they are, so get a second tea flight and enjoy the wait.
I made the most delicious lotion with grass and a green tea scent that I use constantly. It’s already almost gone, and I need to go back to make more!
Midday: Choose your adventure
From here, how you spend the afternoon depends on your interests and the weather. For outdoor fun, make a reservation with Float Ya Boat. The river was really high from all the rain they had received before we visited, so we sadly missed this, but if you’ve never done a river float, you’re missing out.
Dunbar Cave State Park is another good pick. It hosts one of the few caves in the region with visible Native American cave art, and they offer guided tours from May to October.
Unfortunately, once again the water levels meant that the caves were closed when we visited, but we still enjoyed hiking around the park and seeing the outside of the cave. We weren’t the only ones there exploring, but if you can do a guided cave tour, make it happen because even just the entrance looked intriguing.
For history with a Civil War focus, Fort Defiance Civil War Park and Interpretive Center offers trails and exhibits overlooking the rivers. There’s a small indoor center with various exhibits that have audio narration from various letters sent at the time that’s open until 5pm.
We also spent some time wandering the outdoor trails that were mostly shaded, which we appreciated. The bluff is gorgeous and worth a view, as it’s 200 feet over the Red and Cumberland Rivers you walked next to in the morning.
However, we were underwhelmed by the remains of the fort, so stick to the trails with the informational plaques instead. This is a significant descent and ascent to return, so plan accordingly.
If you’d rather stay indoors, head to ArtLink, a community nonprofit studio. We didn’t have the time to make anything, but we were fascinated by the concept and had to stop in to chat with the staff, who gave us a full tour and showed us some of the options people can make.
You can make reservations in advance or drop in to make candles, hydro-dip just about anything, or create a shrinky-dink just for fun. For the hydro-dip, you can bring in your own cups or mugs or other materials or purchase one of the items they have in stock.
ArtLink’s staff will walk you through each project, and it’s a great souvenir of your visit. We tried really hard to fit it in our schedule, but we did not manage to make it back there while they were open as they are closed on Mondays when we had a bit of spare time.
Make the time to visit the Historic Collinsville Pioneer Settlement, a living history site with restored buildings from the 1800s. It’s open seasonally and offers a look at what life was like for early settlers in rural Tennessee.
Each of the buildings has a different theme from the school room where I learned all sorts of fascinating rules about the behavior required of male and female teachers to the curing shed and more. It’s a 40-acre settlement, but it doesn’t feel that vast.
At the end, make sure to stop by the Weakley House where they do guided tours hourly. The Weakleys originally owned the land and founded the town of Collinsville, and the house is set up exactly as it was with all their collections and history.
The settlement has various events throughout the year, and you may be lucky enough to visit when the volunteer blacksmith is forging and other reenactors inhabit the settlement to bring it fully to life. Their biggest event is a Civil War reenactment in June each year and well worth the trip for that.
Later Afternoon: Tastings to Wind Down
Your time in Clarksville has been busy if you’ve followed the suggestions I’ve made, and it comes to a point where you need to relax and take it a bit slower. Who doesn’t love learning and relaxing to end a perfect trip?
I suggest doing a tasting, either whiskey or wine, depending on your preference. We actually did both on different days, and though I don’t immediately gravitate to whiskey, I found a couple that I really enjoyed and purchased two of their moonshine options to bring home.
Old Glory Distilling Co. offers a guided tour that covers how they make their whiskey and finishes with a tasting. Our guide was knowledgeable and friendly, and it was a little different from the last whiskey tour I had done.
As I mentioned, even if you aren’t a huge whiskey fan, the tour is fascinating, and when they get to the moonshine options, you may have found your match. The distillery has an attached restaurant that we also really enjoyed, and honestly I’m all about eating a good meal after doing a whiskey tasting.
If you prefer wine, arrange a tour at Beachaven Vineyards and Winery. You’ll probably notice that they have a tasting room in downtown Clarksville, but it’s worth a (short) drive to their vineyards to do a tour that also includes a wine tasting.
I love that you can choose which wines you want to taste, though I’ll admit that there were so many options it was hard for me to narrow down what I wanted to sip. They’re only open until 6pm on Sundays, but Fridays and Saturdays, they’re open until 8pm.
They also bring in rotating food trucks Friday to Sunday, so you can have dinner there, or you can bring your own picnic, buy a bottle, and set up near the vines.
How to make the most of Clarksville
Clarksville may not have the fame of Tennessee’s bigger cities, but it has just as much heart. The blend of historic charm, growing food and arts scenes, and truly friendly people makes it a great place to visit for a weekend. You’re sure to leave with more stories than you expected and probably with a plan to come back, too.
