4 Best Mid-South Day Trips from Memphis
Memphis’s real advantage isn’t just the city itself. It sits at the exact spot where Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas meet, so a rental car turns it into a launchpad for one of the richest short-radius stretches of music and history in the country. Every trip below starts from downtown Memphis and returns the same night, except where noted.
Tunica, Mississippi (30-45 minutes south)
The closest and easiest add-on: a casino corridor along the river with the Gateway to the Blues Museum and Tunica RiverPark. Good for a half-day if gambling or a change of pace appeals; pair it with an early Memphis morning and you’re back for dinner on Beale Street.
Clarksdale, Mississippi (75-95 minutes south on Highway 61)
The standout trip on this list, and arguably the whole reason Memphis works as a base rather than just a city stop. Clarksdale is the true Delta blues pilgrimage: the fabled Crossroads at Highways 61 and 49, the Delta Blues Museum, Red’s Juke Joint, and the Ground Zero Blues Club, part-owned by actor Morgan Freeman. If your dates land on April 11, 2026, the Juke Joint Festival is worth building the whole trip around. Rushing this one as a there-and-back afternoon undersells it. Consider a night at the Shack Up Inn, a former sharecropper-shack lodging on an old cotton plantation, and let the second morning be part of the trip rather than the drive home.
Oxford, Mississippi (80-90 minutes southeast)
A literary-and-college day: Ole Miss, William Faulkner’s home Rowan Oak, and Square Books on the town square. Slower-paced than Clarksdale, and a good pairing if you want a change of tone after a music-heavy stretch in Memphis.
Shiloh National Military Park (2-2.3 hours east)
A major, well-preserved 1862 Civil War battlefield with a proper interpretive center. It’s the longest drive on this list and deserves a full day rather than a squeeze, so start early and plan to be back after dark.
Big River Crossing: not a day trip, but worth knowing
The free, roughly 1-mile pedestrian bridge from downtown Memphis into West Memphis, Arkansas isn’t a day trip, it’s a 20-minute walk, but it’s the easiest way to set foot in a second state without a car at all.
What’s too far: Nashville
Nashville sits a genuine 3-3.5 hours east, six to seven hours round trip, and doesn’t work as a day trip from Memphis. Treat it as its own separate leg or overnight instead. The Americana Music Triangle, connecting Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans, and the Mississippi Blues Trail, for which Memphis is the northern gateway and Clarksdale a central hub, are useful frames for thinking about the wider region even with Nashville off this list.
Picking your day trips
If you only add one, make it Clarksdale. If you have three or four spare days, Tunica, Clarksdale, and Oxford chain together well as a Mid-South loop, with Shiloh as a longer add-on for Civil War history. All four need a car; none are reachable by public transit from downtown Memphis.
Read more: our 3-day itinerary pairs the Memphis core with a Clarksdale day trip, or see Memphis, Tennessee: A First-Timer’s Base for the full picture.