18+ hotels in Nashville

A Nashville address can mean three very different trips, and the miles between the options are what turn a cheap room into the wrong one. BNA, which is Nashville International Airport, sits about 8 miles southeast of downtown, while the Opryland area, also called Music Valley, sits about 9 miles northeast of downtown. Booking on price alone means the savings get spent on drives instead.

• Downtown, when the trip is the strip. Lower Broadway is the entertainment core, and a room beside it means the walk home replaces a drive.
• The airport side, when the flight leads the schedule. The terminal is 8 miles from downtown, which keeps an early departure simple from this side and makes the strip a planned trip rather than a stroll.
• The Opryland area, when the Grand Ole Opry or the Opry Mills mall is the point. Both venues sit out here, and downtown stays nine miles away.

Driving in changes the math. I-40, I-65, and I-24 converge near the core of downtown, the airport's terminal road leaves I-40, and Briley Parkway, which serves the Opryland area, meets I-40 south of the area and I-65 west of it. A driver can base in any of the three corners, so let the itinerary pick the area before the rate does.

The room is not the only door in this city that checks your age. Lower Broadway, the downtown entertainment strip, goes by the name Honky Tonk Highway, and most of its honky-tonks stop admitting guests under 21 once the evening starts. The cutoff hour is different at every venue and can shift at a manager's call, so treat any specific time you hear as a rumor.

Your check-in age and the strip's door policy are two separate rules. Every hotel on this page will check you in at 18, while each honky-tonk decides its own door, and a downtown room is priced for a nightlife an 18-year-old only gets part of. Plan the strip for the afternoon, when most doors are still open, and book the downtown room for what you can walk to, not what you can walk into.

The bus is Route 18, run by WeGo, Nashville's transit system. It links the Ground Transportation Center at BNA with the Elizabeth Duff Transit Center at WeGo Central, downtown's bus hub, so the terminal and downtown sit on one bus route. Check the schedule before you fly.

Nashville has a train, just not one that helps at the airport. The WeGo Star, a commuter train, runs from Riverfront station downtown east to Lebanon, with stops including Donelson and Hermitage on the way. No rail line serves BNA, so a plan that starts with a train from the terminal does not exist. Route 18 is the transit option instead, which keeps a downtown room realistic for travelers who land without a car.

Music Valley is the corner that pairs with BNA. It sits about 7 to 8 miles north of the airport, roughly a 10 to 15 minute drive up Briley Parkway, so a trip built around the Opry can fly in and fly out through this one corner.

That closeness to the airport matters most at the edges of the trip. Whether you land late or leave early, the gate stays a short drive away, and the Opry sits off the same parkway, so the flights and the show never need a second road. The address earns its keep when the Opry and the flight share the calendar.