Memphis

Memphis is a river city deep inland, with no beach to speak of. The Mississippi is wide, fast and full of barge traffic, and nobody swims in it. In the long, humid summer, cooling off means a hotel pool, a neighbourhood splash pad or a drive out to a lake in the surrounding countryside. This is not a place to come for the water.

Memphis is one of the great American barbecue cities, and its version is its own: pork above all, as dry-rubbed ribs or as pulled shoulder piled into a sandwich with slaw, plus barbecue spaghetti and barbecue nachos found almost nowhere else. Smokehouses run from cinder-block pits in the neighbourhoods to large dining rooms downtown, and the barbecue contest at the Memphis in May festival is a big event in the city's year.

Around that sits Southern and soul cooking: fried chicken, hot wings, catfish, greens, cornbread and tamales in the Delta style. Cooper-Young and Midtown add a smaller layer of modern Southern restaurants, craft breweries and coffee bars. Beyond the regional cooking the international and fine-dining range is thin, so this suits a visitor who wants to eat local and eat heavily.

The city's sights tell two stories of national weight. One is music: Graceland, Elvis Presley's home in the south of the city, with its interiors kept as he left them; Sun Studio, the small room where Elvis, Johnny Cash and others made their first records; and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Soulsville. The other is civil rights: the National Civil Rights Museum is built around the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr was killed in 1968, and is one of the most powerful museums of its kind in the country.

Beyond those, there is Beale Street with its old brick blocks, the cotton-trade buildings of Front Street, the Victorian mansions of the Victorian Village district, the city's art museum with its general collection of European and American painting, and the Pyramid on the riverfront. The historic centre is small and patchy, so a visitor's time goes to a few strong museums rather than to wandering a historic townscape.

Going out in Memphis centres on Beale Street, a few downtown blocks closed to traffic at weekends where you can carry a drink from bar to bar and the crowd stays out late. It is loud, touristy and good fun, more a party street than a scene with depth. Locals drift instead to Midtown, to the bars of Overton Square and the dive bars and beer gardens of Cooper-Young, which are easier-going and less crowded.

There are a few dance clubs and hip-hop nights, but no club culture of note. Away from these pockets downtown empties early, and getting between areas at night generally means a car or a ride-hail.

The landscape is flat Mississippi floodplain, and the river is the main natural feature: you can walk or cycle across it on the Big River Crossing, a path along a railway bridge into Arkansas, and watch the sunsets over the wide brown water from the bluffs downtown. Shelby Farms Park on the eastern edge is one of the largest urban parks in the country, with lakes for paddling, a bison herd and long cycling trails, linked to the city by the Greenline path. Overton Park keeps a stand of old-growth forest in Midtown.

North of the city, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park has bottomland hardwood trails along the river. There are no hills to climb, and the hot, humid summers make spring and autumn the seasons for being outdoors.

Memphis sits at the top of the Mississippi Delta, and the best day out is a drive south along Highway 61 into blues country. Clarksdale, a little over an hour away, has juke joints, a blues museum and the crossroads of legend, and the markers of the Mississippi Blues Trail lead to small towns all across the flat cotton land. Oxford, about an hour and a quarter away, is a gracious university town with William Faulkner's house and a handsome courthouse square.

Tupelo, Elvis Presley's birthplace, is under two hours away, and the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh is about two hours east. It is a good list for music and history pilgrims, though everything needs a car and the towns are small.

The Memphis Zoo in Overton Park is the city's best attraction for children, a large, well-kept zoo with a long history. The Children's Museum of Memphis, the Pink Palace museum with its planetarium, and the playgrounds, lakes and bison herd of Shelby Farms Park fill out a few days. Older children who like music may enjoy Graceland, and the daily march of the ducks through the lobby of the historic Peabody hotel is a small, much-loved ritual.

The rest is harder going. Distances mean a car for almost everything, summers are very hot and sticky, and the headline museums on music and civil rights suit teenagers more than young children. Families do best staying in a quieter area and driving to each outing.

Downtown is compact enough to walk, taking in Beale Street, the riverfront, the Civil Rights Museum and the South Main arts district, and heritage trolleys run along Main Street. Beyond that the city spreads out low and wide: Graceland is in Whitehaven to the south, Midtown and Overton Park lie several kilometres east, and Shelby Farms is on the far edge of town.

Buses exist but are infrequent and not much use to a visitor, and pavements thin out quickly outside the centre. Most people hire a car or use ride-hailing, and a car is essential for anything outside the city.

Shopping is a minor part of a Memphis visit. The most characterful finds are musical: vintage vinyl in independent record shops, and Elvis and blues memorabilia from Graceland and Beale Street, much of it souvenir stock. Cooper-Young in Midtown and Broad Avenue have small boutiques, vintage stores and local art. Mainstream and upmarket shopping happens in malls and shopping centres in the eastern suburbs, reached by car, and there is no central shopping street or luxury district to stroll.

Memphis is one of the more affordable major cities in the United States. Hotels outside the busiest downtown weekends are reasonably priced, and a barbecue lunch or a soul-food plate is cheap and filling. Costs add up elsewhere: most visitors need a car or ride-hails, tipping is expected in restaurants and bars, and the music attractions, Graceland above all, charge full admission. Overall it is middling by Western standards rather than a budget destination, with prices rising sharply during the big spring festivals.

Live music is why many people come, and you can hear it every night of the year. The clubs of Beale Street have house bands playing blues, soul and Southern rock from the afternoon on, and Midtown venues add rock, hip-hop and local acts. In the warm months the Levitt Shell, an old bandshell in Overton Park where Elvis played an early show, puts on free outdoor concerts on the lawn.

The formal arts are smaller but present: the grand Orpheum Theatre hosts touring Broadway shows, and the city has a symphony orchestra, an opera company and a respected ballet company. A visitor will always find a show, though the depth is in roots music rather than in the concert hall.

Memphis has no bathing or spa tradition, and wellness means a hotel spa or a day spa in the eastern suburbs. A visit here tends to be about music, barbecue and late nights rather than rest. The calmest moments are found outdoors: an early walk in Overton Park, a slow evening on the bluffs watching the river, or a quiet morning in leafy Midtown before the heat sets in.