Air travel

While you're at the airport, stop off at the Welcome Center in the middle of the baggage claim area, and pick up some free maps and other tourist information.

The Airport's Website has many links to much useful information for air travelers, including information about taxis and car rentals. Following is an excerpt from their section about shuttles.

Gray Line operates van service to downtown hotels from the airport every 15 minutes from 6:00 AM until 11:00 PM. Average trip time is 30 minutes. Fare is $11.00 one way or $17.00 round trip. Tickets for this service can be purchased at the Gray Line ticket counter, which is located on the ground transportation level to the left of the main entrance/exit doors.

Holiday Inn Vanderbilt, Marriott Courtyard West End, Loews Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel, Hampton Inn Vanderbilt, Guest House Inn, Medical Center Inn, Days Inn Vanderbilt, and Hampton Suites.

Car travel

Nashville is at the intersection of three major interstates:

• Route I-24 (St. Louis MO -- Chattanooga TN)
• Route I-40 (Memphis TN -- Knoxville TN)
• Route I-65 (Louisville KY -- Birmingham AL)

Additional maps of the Nashville area:

• A big map showing just the main roads
• A zoomable map showing all the roads

Caution: Local roads have recently been altered in two noteworthy ways that are not yet reflected on most maps:

• In Summer 2000, the highway signs near downtown Nashville were changed, moving Route 65 from the east loop to the west loop. The road itself was not changed, just its labeling. I've indicated this on the highway map shown on this page; Route 65 is shown dimmed on the east loop and more firmly drawn on the west loop.

  (Why the change? Well, it doesn't affect local drivers who know their way around, but most drivers going between Louisville and Birmingham will simply follow the signs; the new arrangement alleviates excess traffic that we had on the east loop.)

• If your driving, either for tourism or for other purposes, takes you through the Music Row area, your maps may have a minor defect. In Spring 2001 a new traffic circle was added at the north end of Music Row; that's at the bottom of the map below. (Actually, there is no street named "Music Row"; that term refers to the region just northeast and south of that traffic circle.)

• One road name may apply to many places in Nashville. For instance, Old Hickory Boulevard and Briley Parkway both loop most of the way around town, so the intersection of either of those roads with Route 40, Route 65, or Route 24 could refer to at least two entirely different places. Likewise, "Hermitage" apparently refers to three or four different places -- a former president's mansion, a famous hotel, a shopping area, and a residential area -- not all adjacent to each other. And you can't be sure whether "70" really means "70" or "70-S":
  • Route 70, an older but narrower road, is generally known as "Charlotte Pike" or "Charlotte Blvd." Though it is also (officially) Route 70, we local folks seldom refer to it by that name. If we mention "Route 70" in some of our directions, you might do well to ask "do you mean Charlotte Pike?" to make sure that we don't really mean 70-S.
  • Route 70-S starts off as "West End Avenue" but when it gets a bit further from downtown it changes its name to "Harding Road" or "Harding Pike" (not to be confused with "Harding Place", which is somewhere else). Since 70-S runs right alongside Vanderbilt, it is an important road to us, and we sometimes forget that there is another road with a similar name -- thus we sometimes forget to say the "S".

  On the other hand, street names change often in some places. In the course of looping around town, "Briley Parkway" changes its name for a while to "White Bridge Road", then "Woodmont Boulevard", then "Thompson Lane", and then goes back to being "Briley Parkway". In my own neighborhood, there's one little street that is only about 1 mile long but still has three different names.

Note: People attending our conferences/workshops/meetings should check with the organizers before making hotel reservations; in some cases group discounts have been arranged.

Finding your hotel

Most of the hotels are not shown on this map, but are further southwest along West End Avenue. The building numbers on West End correspond to street numbers -- e.g., 1919 West End is between 19th and 20th Avenue. On West End, odd numbers (such as 1919) are on the north side of the street, and even numbers are on the south side. Shoney's Hotel is marked with a red star on this map only because its location is different (and harder to explain without a map).

How to get to the intersection of route 40 and route 70-S:

From the North: I-65 from Louisville: Follow I-65 South to I-265 South, which then intersects I-40. Take I-40 East into Nashville. Get off at exit 209B (Broadway), moving into the right lane as you exit; turn right (i.e., west) onto Broadway. From the Northwest: I-24 from Clarksville & St. Louis: Follow I-24 West to I-265 South, which then intersects I-40. Take I-40 East into Nashville. Get off at exit 209B (Broadway), moving into the right lane as you exit; turn right (i.e., west) onto Broadway. From the West I-40 from Memphis: Follow I-40 East into Nashville. Get off at exit 209B (Broadway), moving into the right lane as you exit; turn right (i.e., west) onto Broadway.

From the East I-40 from Knoxville or from the Nashville airport: Follow I-40 West into Nashville. Get off at exit 209B (Broadway), moving into the left lane as you exit; turn left (i.e., west) onto Broadway. From the Southeast I-24 from Chattanooga: Follow I-24 West to I-40 West. Get off at exit 209B (Broadway), moving into the left lane as you exit; turn left (i.e., west) onto Broadway. From the South: I-65 from Birmingham: Follow I-65 North to I-40. Turn west onto I-40. Get off at exit 209B (Broadway), moving into the left lane as you exit; turn left (i.e., west) onto Broadway.

A VU Math web page, updated slightly on 31 July 2003 by webmaster.