Out, About: You don’t need a drink in Nashville to have fun!

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It’s really hard to show someone around Nashville without it being all about drinking.

My best friend Aaron was in town, and he doesn’t really drink. So I was surprised when he requested a barcade be on the week’s itinerary just before boarding his flight here.

But that’s the beauty of a barcade and all the other variations of bars with activities: The main attraction isn’t the alcohol.

I scrapped my existing itinerary after we went to Up-Down in East and had a blast, looking instead to WPLN’s guide for under-21 nightlife options. We’re certainly not that age anymore, but the crossover between this list and things that would interest sober visitors and residents alike is high.

When our summer 2022 interns Jackie Llanos and Dereen Shirnekhi first pitched this idea, they thought it’d be an easy story. But days turned into weeks as they tried to track down options for the underage segment of the population who doesn’t drink.

Vanderbilt alum Varsha Nair told This Is Nashville that line dancing at Wildhorse Saloon and going to the drag shows at Play Dance Bar defined her early college career, and continued to even after she turned 21.

“I think those kinds of experiences definitely made Nashville really perfect for my years as an early 20-something,” she said on an episode dedicated to sober nightlife in the city.

If you’re more of an Instagram person, you can also find WPLN’s under-21 interactive guide there.