Day trips from Nashville · Park
Long Hunter State Park
18 miles from downtown Nashville · about 30 minutes
Tennessee State Parks, Hermitage, TN, on Percy Priest Lake
Long Hunter is roughly 2,600 acres along the east shore of Percy Priest Lake, thirty minutes from downtown, split into the Baker’s Grove, Couchville and Bryant Grove sections. The Couchville Lake loop is paved and level and the Volunteer Trail is not.
- Size
- About 2,600 acres
- Volunteer Trail
- About 5.5 miles
- Couchville Lake
- Paved loop, non-motorized boats only
- Fee
- Free
Permits, fees and access
Free entry, as with all Tennessee state parks. Two boat ramps. The Sellars Farm State Archaeological Site, a Mississippian mound complex, is administered as part of the park.
One thing to know first
The cedar glades here get brutally hot and exposed in summer with very little canopy. This is a spring and fall park unless you go at dawn.
Access rules, fees and closures verified August 15, 2026 against the agency that manages this place. They change, sometimes without notice. Check before you drive.
The neighborhoods closest to it
If this is the kind of Saturday you want a short drive from your front door, these are the parts of Middle Tennessee that put you nearest to it.
I keep this list because it is genuinely how people spend weekends here, and because almost every guide to it is out of date. If you are weighing a move to Middle Tennessee and want to know which part of it puts you closest to the things you actually like, ask me. No pitch.