Memphis Base Travel Tips for 2026
Memphis rewards a little planning, mostly around timing, driving, and knowing which days things are closed. Here’s what matters most if you’re using the city as a Mid-South base.
Money and tipping
Tipping runs the standard US 18-20% at sit-down restaurants. Memphis’s combined sales tax is a steep 9.75%, and unlike many states, Tennessee applies it to restaurant food too, not just retail, so budget a bit more than the menu price suggests.
You need a car
A car, or at minimum a real rideshare budget, is effectively required for anything beyond the downtown core, and absolutely required for every day trip in this guide. Downtown/Beale/South Main is walkable and served by the Main Street Trolley ($1/ride, $2 day pass, Main St line only), but it has a history of service suspensions, so verify it’s running before relying on it.
Get the closed days right
Stax Museum of American Soul Music is closed Mondays. The National Civil Rights Museum is closed Tuesdays. Both are easy to miss if you’re planning a tight schedule, so check before you build a day around either one.
Book ahead
Graceland requires a timed-entry ticket, book it before you land, especially around Elvis Week (Aug 8-16, 2026) and throughout May, when RiverBeat Music Festival and the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest both draw crowds. If Clarksdale’s Shack Up Inn is part of your plan, book that ahead too, it’s a small, distinctive property with limited rooms.
A word on safety
The realistic visitor risk in Memphis is car break-ins, not violence. Memphis Police’s own campaign is literally “Stow It, Don’t Show It”: never leave anything visible in the car, and use garages over lots or street parking at night. Downtown/Beale/South Main, Midtown, Harbor Town, East Memphis, and Germantown/Collierville are the tourist-safe zones. Beale Street itself is heavily secured on weekend nights, with a $5 per-person security fee after 9pm on select nights and ID and bag checks, safer than its reputation suggests. There’s no US State Department advisory for Memphis or any domestic city, since that system only rates foreign countries.
One disambiguation worth knowing
Memphis, Tennessee has no UNESCO status of any kind. The UNESCO World Heritage Site called “Memphis and its Necropolis” is in Egypt, near Cairo, a different place that only shares the name.
Civil Rights Museum: approach with the reverence it deserves
The museum is built around the preserved Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968. It’s one of the most significant history museums in the country, tracing the movement from slavery through 1968 to today. Give it real time and quiet attention, not a rushed pass-through between livelier stops.
Read more: see Memphis, Tennessee: A First-Timer’s Base for the full trip picture, or the Mid-South day trips guide for what’s beyond the city.