Memphis + Beyond: 5 Day Mid-South Trip
Five days gives Memphis itself two proper days before the trip turns into the reason to base here in the first place, three days across the Mississippi Delta and beyond. Rent a car for the whole trip, none of the day-trip days work without one.
Day 1: Memphis, downtown
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, is 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: Memphis, music history
Book Graceland ahead, it’s timed entry, about $85 adult for the standard Elvis Experience tour, and give it a genuine half-day. Sun Studio (706 Union Ave) in the afternoon, still a working studio, tours run 40-50 minutes and fill fast, about $15 adult / $10 ages 5-11.
Day 3: 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 4: 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, a lighter, easier stop before heading toward the next town.
Day 5: Oxford, Mississippi
About 80-90 minutes southeast of Memphis, Oxford closes the trip on a different note: Ole Miss, Rowan Oak (William Faulkner’s home), Square Books, and the town square, a literary and college-town day rather than a music one.
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 Graceland’s timed tickets, especially in May (RiverBeat, May 1-3, and the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, May 13-16) or during Elvis Week (August 8-16 2026). For the tighter version without Oxford, see the 4-day itinerary ; to add Shiloh’s Civil War battlefield, the 6-day itinerary is next, and the Memphis, Tennessee guide covers every day-trip option in full.