Memphis: Nature Before the Delta Drive
A base-and-day-trip trip through Memphis spends most of its time on music history and Delta towns, but a few real nature stops break up the pace without adding a day to the schedule.
Shelby Farms Park
The city’s biggest natural space by a wide margin: roughly 4,500 acres, one of the largest urban parks in the country, with meadows, lakes, and 40-plus miles of trails. In East Memphis, it’s a straightforward add to a city day rather than a separate outing.
Overton Park
Midtown’s green core, home to the Old Forest, one of the last old-growth forest tracts left in the Mid-South, alongside the Memphis Zoo and the Dixon Gallery & Gardens nearby. Easy to reach on the same day as Sun Studio, which sits on the edge of Midtown.
The Mississippi riverfront
Tom Lee Park and the stretch of riverfront near downtown give unobstructed views of the Mississippi, especially good around sunset. Big River Crossing, a free pedestrian bridge into West Memphis, Arkansas, extends the riverfront walk into a second state without needing a car.
Mud Island: check before you go
Mud Island River Park has been in redevelopment limbo for years, the monorail has been closed since 2018, and a planned 2026 relaunch was postponed after water damage. Don’t plan a visit around it as a normal open attraction, check current status before adding it to an itinerary.
Overton Park Shell
Technically a music venue rather than a park, but the outdoor amphitheater sits inside Overton Park’s green space and hosts free concerts through the warmer months, worth building into a park visit if the timing lines up. It’s also the site of Elvis Presley’s first paid concert in 1954, a small piece of music history folded into an otherwise quiet patch of grass.
Heading into the Delta
Once you’re on Highway 61 south toward Clarksdale or Tunica, the landscape shifts fast, flat Delta farmland replaces the city almost immediately past the Mississippi state line. It’s not a hiking stop, but it’s worth looking up from the road for; this stretch of flat, fertile land is the same geography that shaped the blues towns you’re driving toward.
Between Shelby Farms, Overton Park, and the riverfront, a half-day of genuine outdoor time fits easily around a Memphis city itinerary, and none of it requires cutting into the day you’d otherwise spend on Beale Street or the Civil Rights Museum. Save the longer nature stops for a morning before a Delta day trip, when an early start already has you up and moving. See the hiking areas guide for trail-specific detail on the same spots, and the Memphis, Tennessee day trips guide for what’s waiting once you head south.