Access Memphis Editorial Team

A single walking route can connect downtown Memphis’s core sites in roughly two to two and a half miles: from South Main and the National Civil Rights Museum, north through Beale Street and Court Square, past the Peabody Hotel, to the Mississippi River at the Memphis Pyramid. Most of it runs flat, on sidewalks, with … Read more

A civil-rights day in Memphis has a fixed centre — the National Civil Rights Museum at the former Lorraine Motel — and two other buildings a short drive or ride away, Clayborn Temple and Mason Temple, both directly tied to the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike. Together they form a route that can be walked and … Read more

A day built around music in Memphis moves between four fixed points — Sun Studio, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum and Beale Street — each holding a different piece of the city’s recorded history. None sits within walking distance of the others, so the day is really a … Read more

A sensible first visit to Memphis moves outward from downtown, not toward it. Start at the riverfront and the Beale Street district, take in the civil rights sites while still downtown, then move to Soulsville, Sun Studio and Graceland — in that order, because that is the order the city’s geography puts them in. Working … Read more

A third day in Memphis makes room for what the first two usually skip: a neighborhood taken on its own terms rather than as a stop between landmarks, a museum outside the Beale–Sun–Stax–Graceland core, and either a day trip across the river or unhurried time at a civil rights site that a tighter schedule reduces … Read more

Two days in Memphis works best split by geography, not theme: one day anchored downtown and along the river, covering civil rights history, Beale Street and the South Main Arts District; the other given to Whitehaven and Soulsville for Graceland and Stax, with Midtown in the evening. Both are more compact than they look on … Read more

One day in Memphis is enough to see downtown properly — the National Civil Rights Museum, Beale Street, the Mississippi riverfront — plus one music landmark further out, usually Sun Studio, Stax or Graceland. It is not enough to do all three of those and downtown in the same day without cutting each one short. … Read more