Natchez Trace Parkway
Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi
Tonight
🌗 46% moon
7.2 h fully dark
Hikes
Easy–Strenuous
🟢 🔴
Crowds
very high
Open today
Open
Entrance
Free entry
Current Park Closures
Closures may occur due to inclement weather, construction projects, or other emergency conditions. Please visit the linked page for information about current closures.
Official NPS alert →Mount Locust Visitor Contact Station and Grounds Open Wednesday-Sunday
Mount Locust Visitor Contact Station is now open. The contact station and grounds are open Wednesday through Sunday. The historic inn/stand is closed indefinitely due to serious structural concerns. You can still view the inn/stand but cannot enter.
The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile recreational road and scenic drive through three states. It roughly follows the "Old Natchez Trace," a historic travel corridor used by American Indians, "Kaintucks," European settlers, slave traders, soldiers, and future presidents. Today, people can enjoy a scenic drive as well as hiking, biking, horseback riding, and camping along the Parkway.
Activities
Topics
No entrance fee.
Hours & seasons
The Natchez Trace Parkway motor road is open all year, day and night. Operating hours for information centers and some locations do vary. Severe weather resulting in washouts and downed trees can cause temporary road closures. Questions about road condition should be directed to the Parkway's visitor center by calling 1-800-305-7417.
Generally open:
winterspringsummerfallHours are reported by the park — verify before you go.
📞 6626804027
✉ natr_interpretation@nps.govConditions
Typical crowds: very high
Weather now: ☀️ Clear, 92°F
⛅ 96°/69°
☁️ 94°/74°
🌦️ 99°/72°
Typical monthly recreation visits · NPS avg 2023–2025 — orange months are the quietest by crowds.
Quietest months
Relative crowds by month — lighter is quieter; ringed months are the calmest by crowds.
Jan
74%
Feb
79%
Mar
86%
Apr
90%
May
86%
Jun
93%
Jul
87%
Aug
90%
Sep
96%
Oct
100%
Nov
95%
Dec
88%
Log a sky reading
Measured the sky with an SQM meter or app? Add your reading (16 = city glow … 22 = pristine). Opt in under “Travelers like you” to share it on the community leaderboard.
Things to do
Hiking the Blackland Prairie Section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail · 6 mi · You can hike as much or as little of this six mile trail as you would like. If you do the whole thing out and back you would travel a total of 12 miles.
Hiking the Yockanookany Section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail · 26 mi · This trail is 26 miles in one direction. Dispersed camping is not permitted on the trail. All camping must take place in <a href="https://www.nps.gov/natr/planyourvisit/camping.htm">designated campgrounds </a>unless you have received a special use permit in advance.
Hiking the Highland Rim Section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail · 1.3 mi · This trail is 20 miles in one direction. Dispersed camping is not permitted on the trail. All camping must take place in <a href="https://www.nps.gov/natr/planyourvisit/camping.htm">designated campgrounds.</a>
Birding on the Natchez Trace Parkway
Hiking to Waterfalls on the Natchez Trace · 900 ft gain
🟢 Earn a BARK Ranger Dog Tag · Depending on which trail chosen by the dog or human, the walk can be short or long.
Become a Natchez Trace Junior Ranger · You can take as much time as you'd like to complete your booklet, but it typically takes around a half hour to complete. If you haven't completed your booklet but you need to leave the park, no worries! You can mail in your booklet and the park will send a Junior Ranger badge to you.
Trails on the Natchez Trace Parkway · 27 mi · There are 200-foot paved trails and 27 mile long rustic trails.
Campgrounds
Jeff Busby Campground, Milepost 193.1 · 18 sites · first-come
Meriwether Lewis Campground, Milepost 385.9 · 31 sites · first-come
Rocky Springs Campground, Milepost 54.8 · 22 sites · first-come
Visitor centers
Meriwether Lewis Visitor Information Center Milepost 385.9
Mount Locust Information Center Milepost 15.5
Parkway Information Cabin Milepost 102.4
Parkway Visitor Center Milepost 266
Accessibility
123 audio-described place(s)
Reported by the park — verify before you go.
Not an official safety source — always defer to NPS.gov and rangers for life-safety decisions.
By the numbers
A visual read on Natchez Trace Parkway — its character, trails, sky, and weather.
Park fingerprint
How this park scores across the dimensions travelers care about.
Trail difficulty
Difficulty mix across this park's trails.
3-day forecast
Daily high and low temperatures (°F).
People & stories
Figures tied to Natchez Trace Parkway — each spans a cross-park journey.
Elvira Shoals - Enslaved To Free
— Enslaved, Enslaved People, Freed SlavesHiram Rhodes Revels
— Africa American History, African America History, African American History MonthPassport stamps
Mark the stamps you've collected — they show in your memory and along your routes.
🎫 Meriwether Lewis Visitor Information Center Milepost 385.9
🎫 Mount Locust Information Center Milepost 15.5
🎫 Parkway Visitor Center Milepost 266
🎫 Trail of Tears Bell Route on the Natchez Trace, Milepost 370
🎫 Trail of Tears Benge Route on the Natchez Trace, Milepost 400.2
🎫 Trail of Tears Water Route Overlook on the Natchez Trace, Milepost 328.7
Places to see
Baker Bluff Overlook, Milepost 405.1
audio
Ballard Creek, Milepost 201.3
audio
Battle of Raymond, Milepost 78.3
audio
Bear Creek Mound, Milepost 308.8
audio
Bear Creek Picnic Area, Milepost 313
audio
Beech Springs Bicycle Camp (Parkway VC), Milepost 266
Beech Springs Nature Trail, Milepost 266
audio
Bethel Mission, Milepost 176.3
audio
Birdsong Hollow Double Arch Bridge, Milepost 438.0
audio
Blackland Prairie Section Southern Terminus Trailhead, West Jackson Street
audio
Blackland Prairie section Northern Terminus Trailhead, Milepost 266
audio
Boyd Site, Milepost 106.9
audioAudio & media
🎧 Brick Kiln, Mount Locust, Milepost 15.5 ↗ · 0 mintranscript
🎧 Welcome to Mount Locust, Mount Locust, Milepost 15.5 ↗ · 4 mintranscript
🎧 Old Union Town, Mount Locust, Milepost 15.5 ↗ · 1 mintranscript
🎧 A Business Woman Living on the Frontier, Mount Locust, Milepost 15.5 ↗ · 3 mintranscript
🎧 Kitchen, Mount Locust, Milepost 15.5 ↗ · 1 mintranscript
🎬
🖼
Learn more
Congratulations to the national and regional recipients of the 2013 Freeman Tilden Award for Excellence in Interpretation and Education.
Hopa Mountain, in partnership with the National Park Service, is pleased to announce the 2019 awardees of the Connecting with our Homelands travel grants. Twenty-one Indigenous organizations, schools, and nonprofits have been awarded travel funds for trips to national park units across 12 states/territories within the United States.
Trees shade us from the sun, provide homes for wildlife, stabilize Earth’s surface, and produce food for humans and animals alike. Some are massive, and others are miniscule by comparison, but what makes one better than the other—we’ll let you decide! Check out our iconic trees below and find your favorite!
The first ruling in the United States that gave married women the right to own property. It was ruled that as a Chickasaw woman, she retained ownership of her property. The decision was tainted by the fact that the "property" was an enslaved person.
The 106th Congress (1999-2001) directed the National Park Service to investigate the feasibility and cost to construct a multi-use trail along the Parkwa yTrail Feasibility Study was prepared by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which examined the feasibility of constructing multi-use trails parallel to the Natchez Trace Parkway motor road.
Across the US, changes in water availability are altering which plants grow where. These changes are evident at a broad scale. But not all areas experience the same climate in the same way, even within the boundaries of a single national park. A new dataset gives park managers a valuable tool for understanding why vegetation has changed and how it might change in the future under different climate-change scenarios.
Although the abolition of slavery emerged as a dominant objective of the Union war effort, most Northerners embraced abolition as a practical measure rather than a moral cause. The war resolved legally and constitutionally the single most important moral question that afflicted the nascent republic, an issue that prevented the country from coalescing around a shared vision of freedom, equality, morality, and nationhood.
Long ago Ofi' Tohbi', a great white dog, led Chicsha and Chatah and their people to settle in the southeast.
How Natchez Trace Parkway connects
This park's activities, topics, location, and on-the-ground places — one hop in the graph. Drag to explore; click an activity, topic, or related park to follow it.
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Activity
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VisitorCenter
PassportStamp
Trail
ThingToDo
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