Free & Cheap Things to Do in Memphis

Music & Entertainment

The three-block stretch where W.C. Handy wrote the first published blues song in 1909 and where the Mississippi Delta's musical traditions collided into rock, soul, and rhythm & blues. Today the street still pumps live music out of every doorway — B.B. King's, Rum Boogie, the Black Lodge — for the price of a cover-free walk and a tip.

Address: Beale Street between 2nd & 4th, Memphis, TN 38103

Tip: Music kicks in around 5pm and runs late. The historic A. Schwab General Store (1876, still operating) and the W.C. Handy statue at Handy Park are free daytime stops. Beale Street Bucks ($5 cover after 9pm) collected at street entry points on busy weekends.

Music & Entertainment

The 'Birthplace of Rock and Roll' — the cramped one-room studio where Sam Phillips recorded Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison between 1950 and 1959. Still a working studio at night; daytime guided tours let you stand on the X where Elvis sang into Phillips's RCA 77DX microphone.

Address: 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, TN 38103

Tip: Tours start on the bottom of every hour 10:30am to 4:30pm daily — no reservations, first-come basis. Free shuttle runs between Sun Studio, Graceland, and the Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum. 60 minutes start to finish.

Music & Entertainment

Built on the exact site of the original Stax Records studio in Soulsville USA, the museum tells the story of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, the Staple Singers, and the integrated house band that shaped 1960s American soul. Includes Isaac Hayes's 1972 gold-trimmed Cadillac and a reconstruction of Studio A's slanted-floor recording room.

Address: 926 E McLemore Ave, Memphis, TN 38106

Tip: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–5pm (closed Mondays). About 90 minutes of exhibits plus the small Soulsville USA shop. Pair with Sun Studio for a full Memphis music-history day — the Sun Studio shuttle stops nearby.

Quirky Landmarks

Every day at 11am and 5pm, five mallard ducks ride the elevator down from the rooftop Royal Duck Palace, parade across a red carpet to John Philip Sousa's 'King Cotton March,' and splash into the lobby fountain. The tradition started as a Prohibition-era prank in 1933 and now draws crowds three rows deep — entirely free if you can see over them.

Address: 149 Union Ave, Memphis, TN 38103

Tip: Arrive 30 minutes early on weekends to claim a spot near the carpet. The Duckmaster narrates the history before each march. Free year-round; pair with a cocktail at the Peabody lobby bar to make a longer visit of it.

Parks & Nature

A 52-acre island park in the middle of the Mississippi, accessible from downtown by a pedestrian footbridge or a monorail across the harbor. The half-mile-long River Walk scale model of the lower Mississippi traces every bend from Cairo, Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico — a five-minute walk equals a thousand miles of river.

Address: 125 N Front Street, Memphis, TN 38103

Tip: Park hours: 7am–5pm summer (Mar 15–Oct 31), 6am–5pm winter (Nov 1–Mar 14). The pedestrian bridge from downtown is the budget option; monorail tickets are extra and have variable seasonal hours.

Parks & Nature

A 30-acre Mississippi riverfront park reopened in 2023 after a Studio Gang-led redesign — paved promenade, native landscape gardens, sculptural play structures, and unobstructed sunset views over the river toward Arkansas. Named for the Black laborer who in 1925 saved 32 lives from a sinking riverboat despite not being able to swim himself.

Address: Riverside Dr, Memphis, TN 38103

Tip: Open year-round, free. Hosts the Memphis in May festival every spring (separate ticket). Sunset is the photographer's hour — the Hernando de Soto Bridge frames the western horizon. Connects to the Big River Crossing pedestrian bridge for the longer walk.

Quirky Landmarks

The 32-story stainless-steel Memphis Pyramid — once an NBA arena, briefly empty, now a maximalist Bass Pro Shops with a 13-story indoor cypress swamp, a 100-room Big Cypress Lodge hotel, two restaurants, a bowling alley, an archery range, and three working alligator habitats. Free to walk through; only the elevator to The Lookout observation deck (300 feet up) costs extra.

Address: 1 Bass Pro Drive, Memphis, TN 38105

Tip: Open daily; the swamp, indoor pond, and ground-floor wildlife exhibits don't require admission. Skip the elevator and walk the spiral staircase up to the second-level catwalks for an aerial view — also free.

Quirky Landmarks

Tucked into Memorial Park Cemetery on Poplar Avenue: a hand-built crystal cave depicting scenes from the life of Christ in quartz and rock crystal, the masterwork of Mexican folk-art sculptor Dionicio Rodriguez in the 1930s. Billed as 'the only man-made crystal cave in the world.' Free, quiet, and gloriously strange — quintessential offbeat Memphis.

Address: 5668 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, TN 38119

Tip: Open daily 6am–8pm. The cemetery is also home to Rodriguez's Annie Laurie's Wishing Chair, the Fountain of Youth, and Abraham's Oak — all free, all worth the short walk. Be respectful; this is an active cemetery.