Memphis + Beyond: 4 Day Mid-South Trip
Four days is enough for one Memphis city day, a real Delta overnight, and two more day trips into the Mississippi towns south of the city, Tunica and Oxford. Rent a car for the whole trip, none of it 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, a profound museum that 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 the Delta towns.
Day 2: Clarksdale, Mississippi, overnight
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. Stay overnight at the Shack Up Inn, sharecropper shacks converted into rooms. If your dates land on April 11, 2026, that’s Clarksdale’s Juke Joint Festival.
Day 3: Tunica on the way back
Stop in Tunica, Mississippi, roughly 30-45 minutes north of Clarksdale, for the casino corridor and the Gateway to the Blues Museum, an easier, lighter stop before heading back toward Memphis. Spend the rest of the day back in the city, or push straight on to Oxford if you’d rather cluster the Mississippi towns together.
Day 4: Oxford, Mississippi
About 80-90 minutes southeast of Memphis, Oxford is a literary and college-town day rather than a music one: Ole Miss, Rowan Oak (William Faulkner’s home), Square Books, and the town square. A genuinely different pace from the two Delta blues days before it.
Concrete tip: fill the gas tank before leaving Memphis, options thin out on Highway 61 south of the city. Book ahead: the Shack Up Inn’s rooms, they’re limited and popular on weekends, and Ground Zero Blues Club for a table on a live-music night. For the shorter version without Oxford, see the 3-day itinerary ; to add Shiloh’s Civil War battlefield, the 5-day itinerary is next, and the Memphis, Tennessee guide lays out every day-trip option.