How far is Nashville from Memphis - driving distance (2024)

Flying non-stop from Memphis to Nashville

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in thefastest possible straight line between Memphis, Tennessee andNashville, Tennessee. Because of the curvature of the Earth, theshortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or"as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterativeVincenty formula.

Flight distance: 197 miles or 316 km

Flight time: 35 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 15 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.1x of the flight distance.

Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/3th of the time it would take to drive.

This is a relatively short flight in a private plane, but you might be planning to book a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need toinclude how many minutes to get to your local airport, waitfor security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the otherairport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takesinto account all these factors to get a more accurate estimateof your actual flight time.

Memphis to Nashville road trip

Memphis to Nashville airports and flights

In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a privateplane and just wanted to know the time in the air from city to city.But for most of us, we're going to be flying on a commercial airline(whether it's first class or coach). So that means we really needto account for all the extra travel time getting to the airport,waiting for our flight, and making it to the destination.

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we'veput together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventuallyyou'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airportsand flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected togive you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Memphis International Airport (MEM)

Arrival airport: Nashville International Airport (BNA)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to andfrom the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 25 minutes

Getting to your destination: 18 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an example flight from MEM to BNA and figure out how long it would take to fly includingtake-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.

Commercial flight time: 59 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time fromMemphis to Nashville including time spent getting to/fromthe airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSAsecurity lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.

Total travel time: 4 hours

To see the details on this flight plan, includingrecommended airports, airline, and route, check outthe flight planner:

Plan a trip to Nashville

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Nashville. Trippy has an entire Q&A community where you can post questions and get answers from expert travelers or locals who know the area. For instance, you might be interested in the answers to this question: Drive time. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Gaylord Opryland Resort. A great place to eat might be Bluebird Cafe. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Nashville like Grand Ole Opry. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Nashville like What's the best neighborhood in Nashville for a first time visitor?. Click the button below to explore Nashville in detail.

How far is it the other way?

The distance is the same either way if you're flying a straight line (or driving the same roads back and forth). But for a real trip, there can be plenty of differencesso go ahead and check the reverse directions to get thedistance from Nashville to Memphis, or go to the main pageto calculate the distance between cities.

If you happen to know Memphis, don't forget to help othertravelers and answer some questions about Memphis!