32 Best Things To Do In Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis suits a trip built around music and history: Elvis's house, the studios where soul and early rock 'n' roll were recorded, and the motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, now a national museum. Downtown, you can walk to the river, Beale Street and a dozen of the stops below. The rest, including Graceland, Stax and Shelby Farms, are easiest by car.

1. Graceland

Graceland is Elvis Presley's home, now a museum with guided tours. The mansion tour runs on an iPad, takes in the Jungle Room and the Trophy and Racquetball buildings, and ends at the Meditation Garden, where Elvis and members of his family are buried.

Across the street, the Elvis Presley's Memphis complex adds museums and his customized airplanes. Allow one to one and a half hours for the mansion and two and a half to three and a half for the full Elvis Experience. Before tours start, the Meditation Garden has a free walk-up visit from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m.

2. Sun Studio

The 40-minute guided tour puts you on the spot where Elvis first recorded and plays studio outtakes between stories about B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. Sun Studio, at 706 Union Avenue, takes no reservations, so tours are first come, first served. They start on the half hour from 10:30 a.m.

3. National Civil Rights Museum

The National Civil Rights Museum is built around the Lorraine Motel, one of the few lodgings open to Black travelers during segregation and the place where Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Give it time: a typical visit takes 1.5 to 2 hours. The museum is closed on Tuesdays. Tennessee residents with a state ID get in free on Mondays from 3 p.m.

4. Beale Street

Blues clubs and bars line Beale Street downtown.

5. Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum

The main exhibit at the Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum is The Birth of Rock 'n' Soul. It's based on a 2000 Smithsonian exhibition. Look for the microphone Carl Perkins sang "Blue Suede Shoes" into and a bass owned by Donald "Duck" Dunn.

6. Blues Hall of Fame

The Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame sits a few blocks south of Beale on Main Street. Its 10 galleries have touchscreens where you can hear the music and read the stories of over 400 inductees. Stevie Ray Vaughan's performance kimono and Pee Wee Crayton's Fender Stratocaster are among the pieces on display, and an upstairs gallery takes traveling exhibits.

7. Stax Museum of American Soul Music

The Stax Museum of American Soul Music is run by the Soulsville Foundation, in the Soulsville neighborhood. You walk in through a reassembled 1906 Mississippi Delta church, then past a replica of Studio A with its slanted floor, Isaac Hayes's gold-trimmed Cadillac Eldorado, and a dance floor with old Soul Train episodes playing beside it.

8. The Peabody Ducks

The resident mallards of The Peabody hotel march through the lobby to the fountain. The routine goes back to the 1930s. Marches start at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., and the hotel suggests getting there early for a spot by the fountain.

9. Central BBQ

At Central BBQ, order the ribs wet or dry, or half and half, and add the pulled-pork barbecue nachos. The downtown location is on Butler Avenue in South Main.

10. The Arcade Restaurant

The Arcade on South Main calls itself the oldest cafe in Memphis. It opened in 1919. Breakfast runs all day, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and sweet potato pancakes are on the menu.

11. A. Schwab

This general store started selling boots and shoes on Beale in 1876. It moved to 163 Beale in 1911 and is still there.

Today A. Schwab sells cast iron skillets and old-fashioned candy, and has a soda fountain.

12. South Main Arts District

Main Street south of Beale, around the old Central Station (now mostly a hotel), is the South Main Arts District. Its blocks hold galleries such as Urevbu Contemporary and the Jack Robinson Gallery, public murals, and Gus's Fried Chicken.

Time a visit for Trolley Night on the last Friday of the month, when galleries and shops stay open late.

13. Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art

Carved jade is the draw. The Belz Museum at 119 S. Main holds Chinese art from the Qing Dynasty, much of it jade, alongside a Judaic art section and a Holocaust memorial gallery. It's open Wednesday through Sunday.

14. Orpheum Theatre

Touring Broadway productions play the historic Orpheum at Main and Beale, alongside concerts, comedy and Ballet Memphis.

15. Tom Lee Park

Downtown's riverfront park reopened in September 2023 after a full redesign. It covers 31 acres along the Mississippi. It's free and open daily from 6 a.m. until 30 minutes after sunset. There's a playground and the Sunset Canopy, a covered space used for concerts, yoga and pickup basketball. In June 2026 the park added the Memphis Flyway, a 220-foot elevated walkway that winds over wetlands toward the river.

The name honors Tom Lee, who couldn't swim and still pulled 32 people out of the river in his small skiff when the steamer M.E. Norman capsized in 1925.

16. Big River Crossing

Walk or bike to Arkansas. Big River Crossing is a free pedestrian and bike path across the Mississippi, nearly a mile long, linking Main Street in Memphis to Main Street in West Memphis. On the Arkansas side it joins a 10-mile corridor with the Big River Trail and Ducks Unlimited Park.

17. Mud Island River Walk

Mud Island, reached from downtown by a pedestrian bridge, has a scale model of the Mississippi River you can walk all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

18. Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid

The steel pyramid on the riverfront holds a Bass Pro Shops store, a hotel and restaurants. Inside are a cypress swamp with an alligator pond, ten aquariums, a 13-lane bowling alley, and a freestanding elevator to a glass-floored observation deck over the city and the river.

19. A Redbirds or Grizzlies game

AutoZone Park downtown is home to the Memphis Redbirds, a Triple-A baseball team that plays through spring and summer. From October into April, FedExForum hosts the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies.

20. Crosstown Concourse

At Crosstown Concourse in Midtown, Crosstown Arts runs a gallery, a theater with a film series, and live music in the Green Room, with restaurants downstairs in the same building.

21. Overton Park and the Overton Park Shell

Overton Park is Midtown's central park. Head to the Old Forest State Natural Area for a walk in the woods, or to Rainbow Lake.

The Overton Park Shell runs a free concert series alongside ticketed shows. The band shell was built in 1936.

22. Memphis Zoo

The Memphis Zoo in Midtown is a big walk, about 2 miles to see everything. Teton Trek has grizzly bears, elk and timber wolves, Northwest Passage has polar bears and sea lions, and Zambezi River Hippo Camp has hippos and Nile crocodiles.

23. Metal Museum

At the Metal Museum, visitors can watch metalworkers in the studios and join classes and demonstrations. The museum is at 1930 Poplar Ave. in Overton Park. It's open Wednesday through Sunday.

24. Wiseacre Brewing

Local brewery Wiseacre pours at two taprooms, both serving pizza: the OG Taproom at 2783 Broad Ave. and the downtown HQ at 398 S. B.B. King Blvd.

25. Pink Palace Museum

The Museum of Science & History, known as the Pink Palace, covers fossils, mastodons, Native American history and Civil War relics, and includes tours of the Pink Palace Mansion itself. It's closed Monday and Tuesday.

26. Memphis Botanic Garden

In East Memphis, the Memphis Botanic Garden has 30 specialty gardens. They spread over 96 acres. Late in the year it hosts Holiday Wonders at the Garden.

27. Children's Museum of Memphis

The Children's Museum of Memphis has more than 30 hands-on exhibits, among them an air traffic control tower and a toddler castle. The Grand Carousel and the H2Oh! splash park cost extra, and the splash park opens only from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The museum is closed on Mondays.

28. Shelby Farms Park and Go Ape

At Shelby Farms Park you can rent a boat or paddleboard, ride horses, cycle the Shelby Farms Greenline, or look for the herd of 13 buffalo on its 50-acre range. The park covers 4,500 acres. Its Woodland Discovery Playground is closed until January 2027.

The park is also home to Go Ape, a treetop ropes course with ziplines. Its full Treetop Adventure is for ages 10 and up and at least 4 feet 7 inches tall, and the shorter Treetop Journey takes younger kids.

29. C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa

This University of Memphis museum in southwest Memphis is built around a prehistoric Native American mound complex. The C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa also has a furnished replica of a house from 500 to 1,000 years ago, a hands-on archaeology lab and a nature trail with an arboretum.

30. Crystal Shrine Grotto

The Crystal Shrine Grotto sits inside Memorial Park Cemetery on Poplar Avenue; the cemetery's founder called it "the only man-made crystal cave in the world." Mexican artist Dionicio Rodriguez started work on it in February 1935 and shaped its concrete by hand over wire mesh. It's an active cemetery, so keep voices low and give funerals space.

31. Putt-Putt Family Park

For an evening with teenagers, Putt-Putt Family Park on Summer Avenue (formerly Golf and Games) has mini golf, laser tag, bumper boats and batting cages.

32. World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest

The Memphis in May festival's barbecue contest returns to Liberty Park on May 12 to 15, 2027, with competition teams cooking over four days.

Getting around

Downtown, the Main Street Trolley bus costs $1 each way.