Most travelers heading to Nashville for the first time land squarely on Broadway — the neon-lit strip of honky-tonks, line-dancing bars, and pedal taverns that defines the city’s tourist experience. It’s worth at least one night, and the energy is genuinely unmatched if you’ve never seen it before. But Nashville is much bigger than Lower Broad, and the city’s best experiences are often the ones that don’t show up on the first page of TripAdvisor.

If you’ve already done the Broadway loop, or you’re skipping it on purpose this trip, here are five underrated experiences worth building your itinerary around.

1. Spend an afternoon on Percy Priest Lake

Most visitors don’t realize Nashville has a massive open-water lake just 20 minutes east of downtown. Percy Priest covers more than 14,000 acres and is the city’s best escape from summer heat, parking hassles, and pedal-tavern fatigue. Rent a captained pontoon for a half-day and you get swimming, water sports, an onboard sound system and a stop at Party Cove — the floating social scene that happens almost every weekend between May and September.

If you’re booking ahead, Rowdy Boats runs slide-equipped party pontoons with licensed captains, so no one in your group needs a Tennessee boater certificate or any prior boating experience. The setting also delivers better group photos than any rooftop in town — open water, sunset light and the bride’s face when she goes down the slide for the first time.

2. Hit Five Points in East Nashville for the real music scene

Broadway gets the tourist headlines, but the actual Nashville music community lives in East Nashville. Clubs like The Basement East, The 5 Spot, and Rosemary’s draw working songwriters, touring indie acts, and the kind of crowd that came to listen instead of scream. Skip the cover bands on Broadway and catch a writer’s round — three or four songwriters trading songs and the stories behind them. It’s the version of Nashville music you can’t see anywhere else in the country.

3. Walk the pedestrian bridge at sunset

The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge stretches across the Cumberland River with the downtown skyline lit up behind it. Walk it westbound about 30 minutes before sunset and you’ll catch the city transitioning from gold to neon. It’s free, it takes 20 minutes round trip, and the photos are genuinely better than anything you’ll get standing on Lower Broad with a beer in your hand.

4. Eat hot chicken outside the obvious spots

Hattie B’s gets the lines and the social-media coverage, but Nashville hot chicken existed for 50 years before that. It still exists at neighborhood institutions like Bolton’s, Prince’s and Pepperfire each with its own heat profile, its own side preferences and its own regulars who’ve been coming for decades. Pick one outside the downtown corridor, plan on a wait and you’ll have a better hot-chicken story than another Hattie B’s selfie. Bring water and order one heat level milder than you think you can handle.

5. Catch a show at the Bluebird Cafe

The Bluebird in Green Hills is where Nashville’s songwriters perform for each other. It’s small — around 90 seats and the audience is required to be quiet, which means you actually hear the songs and the stories behind them. Reservations are competitive (Mondays at 8 a.m. Central when the new week opens), and the in-the-round shows are the real draw. Yes, it’s a tourist destination now. But it’s a tourist destination that still does the thing well.

The bigger picture

Nashville’s reputation is built on Lower Broad, but the city rewards travelers who look past it. Build at least one of these five into your trip — the lake afternoon is the easiest to schedule and the one most groups regret skipping — and the rest of the weekend will feel like a real city visit instead of a Broadway loop with extra steps.