How many days in Memphis?

The headline things to do in Memphis

From the Memphis guide — these are the items that anchor a 2-day visit. For the full breakdown, read the Memphis travel guide.

1. Graceland — Whitehaven (9 miles south of downtown)

   Elvis Presley's 23-room mansion — bought in 1957 for $102,500 when he was 22 — preserved as he left it in 1977: shag carpet on the ceiling of the Jungle Room, the yellow-and-blue TV Room with its three TVs side-by-side (Elvis copied LBJ), the trophy building of gold records, and the Meditation Garden where Elvis, his parents Vernon and Gladys, and his grandmother are buried. The Elvis Presley Boulevard side now includes a 200,000 sq ft entertainment complex with the planes (the Lisa Marie and the Hound Dog II). $80 mansion tour; $115 ultimate tour with planes and museum buildings.

2. Sun Studio — Marshall Avenue / Edge district

   The 30 × 18 foot recording room at 706 Union Avenue — physically unchanged since Sam Phillips opened it in 1950 — where Elvis cut his first commercial recordings in July 1954, where Carl Perkins recorded "Blue Suede Shoes", Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues", Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls of Fire", and the December 1956 Million Dollar Quartet jam (Elvis, Cash, Lewis, Perkins) was preserved on tape. Hourly 45-minute guided tours; $19. Active recording studio at night — U2, Def Leppard, John Mellencamp, and Chris Isaak have all recorded here.

3. Stax Museum of American Soul Music — Soulsville USA (3 miles south of downtown)

   On the original Stax Records site at 926 E McLemore — the Memphis soul label that produced Otis Redding ("Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"), Isaac Hayes ("Theme from Shaft"), Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett between 1957 and 1975. The studio was demolished in 1989; the museum opened in 2003 as a near-exact reconstruction with the original sloped floor (the building was a former theatre) that gave Stax recordings their distinctive ambience. Isaac Hayes' gold-trimmed Cadillac is on display. $14 adults.

4. National Civil Rights Museum — South Main Arts District

   Built into the original Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street — Martin Luther King Jr. was shot standing on the second-floor balcony outside Room 306 on 4 April 1968. Room 306 and the room next door (where King's associates were staying) are preserved exactly as that day, with the original 1968 furnishings, plates, ashtrays. The exhibit hall traces 400 years of African-American freedom struggle from slavery to the present. The Legacy Building across the street covers the rooming house where James Earl Ray fired the rifle. $18 adults; closed Tuesdays. Allow 3+ hours.

5. Beale Street — Downtown

   A 3-block strip of blues clubs, neon, BBQ joints, and souvenir shops — the historic heart of Memphis Black entertainment from the 1860s through the 1960s, where W.C. Handy first wrote down the blues in the early 1900s. Today it is touristy but genuine: B.B. King's Blues Club, the Rum Boogie Cafe, Silky O'Sullivan's (with the goats), and street musicians along the closed-to-cars central blocks. Free to walk; cover charges $5–$15 at clubs after 21:00. The Beale Street Music Festival takes over the riverfront every May.

6. The Peabody Hotel & Duck March — Downtown

   The grand 1869 Peabody Hotel — the social heart of Memphis — has had a flock of mallards living in the rooftop Duck Palace since the 1930s, and twice a day (11:00 and 17:00) the Peabody Duckmaster marches them through the lobby on a red carpet to and from the marble fountain, accompanied by John Philip Sousa's "King Cotton March". Free to watch from the lobby (arrive 30 minutes early for a spot near the carpet). The lobby bar is the best classic-cocktail room in the city.

7. Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum — Downtown / Beale Street

   Smithsonian-affiliated museum at 191 Beale Street tracing the story of how Memphis became the birthplace of rock and roll — from Delta sharecropper field hollers through Beale Street blues, Sam Phillips at Sun Records, Stax and Hi Records soul, to the present. Self-guided audio tour with hundreds of original recordings; the rare combination of musical and social history makes this the best one-stop overview of why Memphis matters. $13 adults.

8. Mississippi River & Mud Island — Downtown / Mud Island

   The bluff downtown faces directly onto the Mississippi — Tom Lee Park, Riverside Drive, and the cobblestone landing are the prime sunset viewing spots. Mud Island River Park (reached by monorail or a footbridge) has a quarter-mile scale model of the Lower Mississippi Basin you can walk along (the river starts at Cairo, Illinois and flows the model's length to the Gulf). $15 monorail; the model is free to walk.

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