Day trips from Nashville · Town
Memphis
210 miles from downtown Nashville · about 3 hours
Shelby County, TN, on the Mississippi River
Long day or overnight, not an afternoon
Memphis sits on the Mississippi bluffs three hours west on I-40, and it is the birthplace of commercially recorded rock and roll and Stax-era soul. It is also where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, at the Lorraine Motel, which is now the National Civil Rights Museum.
- Distance
- 210 miles, about 3 hours straight down I-40
- Time zone
- Central, same as Nashville
- Must pre-book
- National Civil Rights Museum, timed and online only
- Closed Tuesdays
- National Civil Rights Museum
Permits, fees and access
The National Civil Rights Museum is the one you must pre-book. Tickets are timed and sold online only, and it is closed Tuesdays. Sun Studio deliberately does not take reservations, so turn up early. The Memphis Zoo prices by day of week, so any fixed figure you read is wrong for some dates.
Things to do in Memphis
Addresses, hours and prices as published by each operator in August 15, 2026. Hours and prices move, so check before you go.
National Civil Rights Museum
450 Mulberry Street, built around the Lorraine Motel. Open 9am to 6pm, closed Tuesdays, last admission 5pm. Adults $25, children 5 to 17 $22, seniors and college students $23. Timed tickets are sold online only and walk-ups are standby. Free for Tennessee residents on Mondays from 3pm to close with state ID.
Graceland
3717 Elvis Presley Boulevard for tickets, with the mansion across the street at 3764. Open daily 9am to 4pm. It has its own guide on this site, because the ticket ladder and the free early morning window at the Meditation Garden need more room than a line here.
Sun Studio
706 Union Avenue. Open daily 10am to 5:15pm with hourly tours on the half hour. Adults $20, children 5 to 11 $15. No reservations, first come first served, so arrive early.
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
926 East McLemore Avenue. Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm, closed Mondays, last admission 4pm. Adults $20, with a $16 rate for ages 7 to 12, seniors, veterans and military.
The Peabody ducks
149 Union Avenue. The duck march runs daily at 11am and 5pm, with the ducks in the lobby fountain in between. Free to watch, and worth arriving half an hour early for a spot.
Memphis Zoo
2000 Prentiss Place. Gates at 9am, last entry 5pm, open 362 days a year. Admission is genuinely dynamic and varies by day, so check before you go. Closed September 11, 2026.
Beale Street
The downtown entertainment district. The street itself is free and individual clubs set their own covers.
One thing to know first
Graceland’s ticket ladder confuses people constantly. The $53 ticket does not get you into the house. If walking through the mansion is the point, the entry level is the $85 Elvis Experience. Also, Graceland alone runs three to four hours and sits twenty minutes from downtown, so trying to add the Civil Rights Museum and Beale in the same day means rushing all three.
Access rules, fees and closures verified August 15, 2026 against the agency that manages this place. They change, sometimes without notice. Check before you drive.
I keep this list because it is genuinely how people spend weekends here, and because almost every guide to it is out of date. If you are weighing a move to Middle Tennessee and want to know which part of it puts you closest to the things you actually like, ask me. No pitch.