Ready to learn how to travel Memphis? These are some of the most recommended places to visit.
Planning a trip to Memphis is super exciting! If you’re anything like me, you’re here because you love to research and plan your trip ahead of time. As an avid traveler, I am giving you the best places to travel Memphis.
You are going to learn about Beale Street, The National Civil Rights Museum, Graceland, and more. After learning about these places, you are going to be ready for your next Memphis travel adventure!
This post is all about 3 incredible days to travel Memphis.
Known for blues and barbecue, Memphis has been on my bucket list to take a road trip to Memphis, and the summer of 2021, I had my chance. Memphis is a smaller, southern city that can easily be toured in a few days. We stayed for 2 nights and 3 days before continuing our road trip to New Orleans.
Day 1: Evening on Beale Street
We arrived in Memphis in the evening and first checked into our hotel in Midtown, the Holiday Inn Express Memphis Medical Center Midtown. For this trip, we opted for a budget hotel and the location was great for us. It’s only a 10 minute drive down Union Street to get to downtown. It’s a more quiet area away from crowds and late night bars and restaurants.
Dazzling Beale Street
After we checked into our hotel, we drove down to Beale Street. Beale Street is one of the most famous streets in Memphis with a lot of bars and restaurants and of course live music. This is the place to be for all things blues. We waited in line for B.B. King’s Blues Club. For the two of us, we probably waited only 20 minutes before being seated. While waiting in line, there is plenty of street entertainment to keep you occupied!
Day 2: Historic Tour, Peabody Ducks, and National Civil Rights Museum
Our second day to travel Memphis was packed! Knowing we were only here for 3 days, we tried to do as much as possible.
Backbeat Historic Tour
In the morning, we started with the historic Memphis walking tour. I always recommend doing some type of walking tour in a new city, and at the beginning of your stay. It’s a great way to get familiar with your surroundings, learn some history, and even get a few recommendations from the local tour guide. We chose to do our walking tour with Backbeat Tours. The historic Memphis walking tour took us through Beale Street, Historic Court Square, Civil War sites, Deadman’s Alley, and Main Street.
The Famous Peabody Ducks
During the tour, we stopped in the Peabody Hotel to watch the march of the Peabody Ducks. This has been a daily tradition since the 1930s! It all started when a group of hunters thought it would be funny to place their live duck decoys in the hotel lobby fountain. Now it is a daily routine for the ducks to march from their own apartment in the hotel, ride down the elevator, and walk down the red carpet rolled out for them and into the fountain. It’s a great family friendly event, available to anyone during the week, and Peabody Hotel guests on weekends.
Secret tip: If you are not a Peabody hotel guest on a weekend, you can try the entrance to the hotel that is inside the parking garage. Sometimes it’s open and accessible during the march of the ducks.
From our tour guide, we got some local recommendations for lunch and made our way back to Main Street to enjoy tacos and tostadas from Maciel’s Tortas & Tacos. They offer delicious, authentic Mexican food. I loved the tostadas and horchata!
Exploring South Main Street
After lunch we walked down South Main Street. This is a really cool part of town, with a lot of trendy shops, restaurants, and bars. Along our walk, we stopped in Vice & Virtue Coffee inside the ARRIVE hotel for an afternoon pick me up. If you’re looking for a boutique hotel, this hotel is just that, and the coffee shop/lobby area is very cozy.
National Civil Rights Museum
We just happened to be in Memphis on Juneteenth. It was a privilege to go to the National Civil Rights Museum on such a significant day in black history. We really enjoyed this museum. It is a humbling experience to walk through the original parts of the Lorraine Hotel and relive the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. We originally did not plan to go to this museum (unusual for us planners) so we did have to wait in line a bit longer. I do recommend purchasing your tickets in advance.
Later, we made our way to dinner at Charlie Vergo’s Rendezvous. This barbecue restaurant came highly recommended during our tour. It’s located on Rendezvous Alley. They smoke their barbecue over a long period of time, making the meat fall off the bone tender. We really enjoyed the baby back ribs! Expect to wait in line for this restaurant. We went inside to the host stand to be added to the waitlist. While waiting, we enjoyed a drink from the bar upstairs, where there is additional seating.
Once we finished dinner, we opted to check out Beale Street one more time before heading back to our hotel for the night.
Day 3: Street Art and Graceland
In the morning, we went for brunch at Edge Alley. This is a cute, bright, and industrial looking venue that serves up contemporary brunch on weekends. I ordered the avocado toast while Joe got the house cured salmon lox sandwich. Note that they are only open Wednesday through Sunday.
Fun Street Art
On our way to the car, we noticed the iconic “With Love From Memphis” mural and had to take a few pictures. There are several really cool murals in Memphis worth checking out. Here is an entire guide of murals and their locations if you’re looking for something free to do.
Iconic Graceland Museum
After brunch, we made our way to the Graceland Museum. Where do I begin with this part of our trip? We originally debated whether or not to go to Graceland (home of Elvis Presley) because tickets are not cheap. In the end, we decided to go for it, as this may be our only time to travel Memphis. We chose the package that included Graceland, Elvis’s jets, and the entertainment complex. Looking at the current selection of tickets for 2022, it appears this package has actually gone down in price, to $77.00 per person.
Entering the Graceland Museum
When we drove up to the museum, we learned that parking was not included. Yes, we had to pay to park inside an exclusive parking lot, reserved for museum guests only. Our tickets were for the 11:30 AM time slot. We arrived a bit early and made our way to the main entrance of the entertainment complex.
Since we already purchased tickets, we waited in the lobby until our tour time was called. Once our time was called, we formed a line where we waited about 10 minutes before moving to another line to wait (again) to enter the theaters. Inside the theaters, we watched a short introduction video about Elvis. After watching the video, we exited to doors leading us outside where we waited in yet another line to get onto a shuttle bus that would bring us to the Graceland Mansion that is located across the street from the complex.
By the time we actually began the tour, it was about an hour after the tour time we booked. I do not know if this was a COVID related issue, but I recommend setting aside several hours for this tour.
Graceland Mansion
The Graceland Mansion was definitely the highlight of the tour. We walked through many rooms of the house, including the jungle room.
Fun fact: Priscilla Presley still uses the home, so the upstairs bedrooms are not accessible. The tour is self-guided using iPads and headphones. The jungle room was so cool! I also loved the indoor racquetball court. It’s just incredible to walk through the home of a legendary singer.
Graceland Private Planes
Included in our tour were the two private planes that Elvis Presley owned. These are really cool to go through as well. We walked through both and it felt like going back in time to the 1960s.
Graceland Entertainment Complex
Within the entertainment complex, we saw Elvis’s huge automobile collection. This is a great part of the tour if you’re really into cars and movie culture. There is also an opportunity to see all of Elvis’s extravagant show costumes as well as famous costumes of other performers, inspired by Elvis.
Overall, I would recommend this tour if you are a huge Elvis Presley fan. We found it to be overly expensive and a little behind in innovation and technology to make it a worthwhile experience for the price.
Walking through the mansion was definitely the best part. If they ever offer a tour option that is for the mansion only, I would highly recommend it.
Other Things to Do in Memphis
I wish we had 1 more day in Memphis to check out these other items:
The Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum and Sun Studio Museum were recommended to me by a friend, but we just didn’t have the time. During our tour of Graceland, I learned a bit more about Sun Studio, and I think that would be a really cool museum to check out.
Go for a trolley ride! There is a Main Street and Riverside trolley.
More barbecue! There are so many amazing barbecue restaurants to choose from like Corky’s and Central BBQ.
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