The Best Cheap Date Ideas in Nashville

Spend a free afternoon at the Tennessee State Museum, where galleries trace the state’s history, art, and culture from natural history through the present day. Parking is also free in the lot shared with Nashville Farmers' Market.

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm and Sunday from 1pm to 5pm. If you want to keep the date going, Nashville Farmers' Market and Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park are both next door.

Follow a self-guided history walk through Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, a downtown park of monuments, memorials, and fountains. A 95-bell carillon is part of the park too, along with green space and interactive exhibits.

Visiting is free, and the park is open daily. Some areas may close at times for improvement work.

Fort Negley Park pairs a half-mile trail with visitors center exhibits and a 20-minute video on how the Civil War fort was built, plus a good view of the city. While construction goes on, the fort itself is closed for now, but the trail stays open.

The park is open from dawn to dusk and costs nothing to enter. The visitors center is open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4pm and Saturday from 9am to 4pm, and parking is very limited.

Pack a picnic and a blanket for Centennial Park, then walk around the lake and stop by the full-scale Parthenon replica with its 42-foot statue of Athena. Paths, gardens, and plenty of green space give you room to wander before or after you eat.

The park and the Parthenon’s exterior are free to explore.

Catch an independent film at Belcourt Theatre, a 1925 cinema in Hillsboro Village that shows new releases and vintage favorites. It makes for a more intimate movie date than a chain theater.

Browse downtown galleries during the First Saturday Art Crawl, a free monthly evening that runs from 6pm to 9pm. Work by world-renowned artists and local ones fills the galleries, and a few offer refreshments. The galleries open along the 5th Avenue of the Arts area.

The Civil Rights Room is part of the Downtown Library and pairs a symbolic lunch counter with sit-in photos and a civil rights timeline. Take the self-led tour together.

Admission is free. The room is open Monday through Friday from 9am to 6pm, Saturday from 9am to 5pm, and Sunday from 2pm to 5pm.

Come for happy hour at Pearl Diver, an East Nashville tropical bar with a lush patio, cabanas, and island-inspired food. From 4pm to 6pm, menu cocktails are half price and food specials run.

Walk beside the Cumberland River at Shelby Bottoms Greenway, a 960-acre natural area in East Nashville. Paved and primitive trails run past more than three miles of river frontage, bottomland forest, fields, and wetlands.

The greenway is free and open every day from dawn until dusk. The main trailhead has parking.

Wander the farm sheds and market house at Nashville Farmers' Market, a year-round market with produce, artisanal food, restaurants, shops, crafts, and a garden center. It is open daily.

Entry is free. Parking is free for two hours in the market lot and the shared museum lots.