Memphis + Beyond: 3 Day Mid-South Trip
Three days gives you one real Memphis city day, then a genuine overnight in the Mississippi Delta rather than a rushed there-and-back, with Tunica as a stop on the drive home. Rent a car for the whole trip, none of this works without one.
Day 1: Memphis
Start at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel (450 Mulberry St), site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968. It’s a profound museum and deserves real time. About $25 adult / $22 child / $23 senior-student, 9am-6pm, last entry 5pm, closed Tuesdays. Lunch at Central BBQ, then Beale Street, B.B. King’s Blues Club and Rum Boogie Cafe are the reliable stops, weekend nights after 9pm bring a $5 security fee at some entrances plus ID checks and metal detectors.
One honest note for the whole trip: Memphis’s citywide crime rate runs above the US average but concentrates outside the tourist core, and 2026 has actually been the lowest violent-crime half-year on record here. The real risk to a visitor is car break-ins, not violence, hence the local police campaign “Stow It, Don’t Show It.” Keep nothing visible in a parked car, in Memphis or in a Delta town alike.
Day 2: Clarksdale, Mississippi, overnight
Leave Memphis in the morning, about 75-95 minutes south on Highway 61. Clarksdale is the real Delta blues pilgrimage: the Crossroads where Highways 61 and 49 meet, the Delta Blues Museum, Ground Zero Blues Club (Morgan Freeman is a co-owner), and Red’s Juke Joint for the unpolished, authentic version of live blues. Spend the afternoon and evening working through those, then stay overnight at the Shack Up Inn, sharecropper shacks converted into rooms, genuinely part of the Delta blues experience rather than just a place to sleep. If your dates land on April 11, 2026, Clarksdale’s Juke Joint Festival is worth timing the whole trip around.
Day 3: Tunica on the way back
Before heading back into Memphis, stop in Tunica, Mississippi, about 30-45 minutes north of Clarksdale and roughly the same south of Memphis, for the casino corridor and the Gateway to the Blues Museum, a lighter, easier stop than Clarksdale and a natural break on the drive back. Return to Memphis by afternoon.
Concrete tip: fill the gas tank before leaving Memphis, options thin out south of the city on Highway 61. Book ahead: the Shack Up Inn’s rooms, they’re limited and popular on weekends, and Ground Zero Blues Club if you want a table on a live-music night. For a lighter one-day version of the Delta trip, see the 2-day itinerary ; to add Oxford’s literary/college-town day, the 4-day itinerary is next, and the Memphis, Tennessee guide covers the day-trip options in full.