One of the guidebooks we took on a recent drive across America wasn't particularly helpful when it came to scenery. Then again, the Rock'n'Roll Traveler USA was always going to be more interested in directing you the field in which Buddy Holly's plane crashed and the Taliesyn Ballroom in Tennessee where the Sex Pistols played the second concert of their notorious and short US tour in 78.

It's now a Taco Bell incidentally. 

All are interesting places for rock lovers to be sure, but most of them were hardly worth the diversion. But when my wife Megan and I read a rare mention of something as un-hip as "a nice drive" we were immediately besotted.

"Farther south is Jackson, the state capital," it said about Mississippi where we were heading, "connected to Tupelo by the Natchez Trace, one of the nation's loveliest drives".

Well, we were aiming our rental up from New Orleans in Louisiana to Natchez on the banks of the mighty Mississippi. After that we were planning to go on through the Delta and blues country to Tupelo in the north east corner of Mississippi to see the birthplace of Elvis Presley, where our book would surely become more handy...

Read more on Graham's website http://www.elsewhere.co.nz/travelstories/258/natchez-trace-mississippi-the-highway-like-heaven/