# Delta 101 A 3-day, ~420-mile Southern road trip from Memphis. It chains The Blues Highway and The Hill Country Ramble. - **Days:** 3 - **Distance:** ~420 mi - **Starts in:** Memphis - **Themes:** Music, History - **Routes chained:** [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61), [The Hill Country Ramble](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/hill-country) The essential first taste: down the Blues Highway to the Crossroads and the Delta's shrines, back through Faulkner's Oxford. Music every night if you time the jukes right. ## Why this itinerary works Starting in Memphis, this 3-day itinerary connects The Blues Highway and The Hill Country Ramble. It suits travellers interested in blues, country, jukes & jamborees; battlefields, the movement & the past. The day-by-day bases let you split roughly 420 miles into a sequence of visits rather than trying to cover every linked route end to end. Use the daily highlights to decide which places deserve your longest stops. ## Day by day ### Day 1: Memphis → Clarksdale Sun Studio and the Lorraine Motel in the morning, then 61 south past Tunica's Gateway museum. Crossroads photo, Delta Blues Museum, dinner at Abe's, juke night at Red's or Ground Zero. Sleep in a sharecropper shack at the Shack Up Inn. Highlights to consider: - **Gateway to the Blues** (Tunica) — A proper primer museum in an 1895 rail depot right on 61 — learn to hear what you're about to drive through. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **The Crossroads & Clarksdale** (Clarksdale) — Where 61 meets 49 — Robert Johnson's alleged bargain. Delta Blues Museum (with Muddy Waters's cabin), Ground Zero, Red's juke joint, the Riverside Hotel where Bessie Smith died (1937), beds at the Shack Up Inn, and Abe's Bar-B-Q since 1924. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) ### Day 2: Clarksdale → Greenwood Dockery Farms early (read the plaques aloud, it's allowed), Grammy Museum in Cleveland, Po' Monkey's roadside respects, Kermit's museum in Leland, B.B. King's Indianola — then east to Greenwood: Robert Johnson's grave at dusk, Bryant's Grocery and the Sumner courthouse for the history that can't be skipped. Highlights to consider: - **Po' Monkey's** (Merigold) — Willie Seaberry's sharecropper-shack juke ran Thursday nights from 1963 until his death in 2016. Closed now, still standing in the fields — road-trippers stop to pay respects. McCarty Pottery in town shapes Delta clay into heirlooms. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Dockery Farms** (Cleveland) — 'You might say it all started right here' — B.B. King, about the plantation where Charley Patton taught a generation. The Grammy Museum Mississippi in Cleveland is the modern bookend. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Robert Johnson's Grave** (Greenwood) — Three churchyards claim him; Little Zion's pecan-shaded plot north of town is the best-attested. Whiskey and guitar picks accumulate. The Help was filmed all over Greenwood; Tallahatchie Flats rents shotgun shacks on the river. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Bryant's Grocery** (Money) — The collapsing store where a lie about 14-year-old Emmett Till began (1955). Markers here have been defaced and replaced for decades — the river-site sign is now bulletproof. Unbearable and necessary. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) ### Day 3: Greenwood → Memphis via Oxford North on 49E/7 to Oxford: Rowan Oak, an hour you didn't budget at Square Books, catfish at Taylor Grocery (early), then the Hill Country Ramble backward into Memphis. Payne's chopped pork if you beat the close. Highlights to consider: - **Taylor Grocery** (Taylor) — 'Eat or We Both Starve' — catfish in a gloriously leaning 1889 storefront, brown-bag your own bottle, live pickers most nights. Worth planning a day around. [The Hill Country Ramble](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/hill-country) - **Rowan Oak** (Oxford) — Faulkner's cedar-alley home (1930–62), with the plot of A Fable penciled on the office walls. His grave across town accepts whiskey; pour, don't chug. [The Hill Country Ramble](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/hill-country) - **Beale Street, Sun & Stax** (Memphis) — The trinity in one city: W.C. Handy's Beale, the Sun Studio where Elvis walked in, and Stax's Soulsville. Add Graceland in proportion to your devotion. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Payne's Bar-B-Q** (Memphis) — A converted gas station serving the chopped-pork sandwich (slaw on, hot sauce yes) by which all others are judged. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **National Civil Rights Museum** (Memphis) — Built into the Lorraine Motel, preserving Room 306 and the balcony where Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968. Start the whole trip here; everything south of Memphis echoes it. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) ## Practical planning Budget an average of about 140 miles per day across the whole trip, or roughly 3.1–4.7 hours behind the wheel at an assumed 30–45 mph back-roads pace. This is a planning estimate, not a measured time for each leg: transfer days can be longer and rest days shorter. Add meal stops, tours, ferries, traffic and hikes separately; use each day's navigation link for current driving estimates. ### Overnight bases - Day 1: near Clarksdale, MS - Day 2: near Greenwood, MS - Day 3: Greenwood → Memphis via Oxford ### Best season & route notes - [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61): Summer is an anvil; October is perfect. - [The Hill Country Ramble](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/hill-country): Foxfire Ranch (Sundays) and Gravel Springs (late August) are the living hill-country sound — schedule around them. ## Frequently asked questions ### How many days and miles is Delta 101? Delta 101 is a 3-day trip of about 420 miles. ### Where does Delta 101 start? It starts in Memphis. ### Which routes does Delta 101 chain together? It chains The Blues Highway and The Hill Country Ramble. ### Where are the overnight bases on Delta 101? Day 1: near Clarksdale, MS; Day 2: near Greenwood, MS; Day 3: Greenwood → Memphis via Oxford. ## Related itineraries - [The Red Dirt Roadhouse Run](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/red-dirt-run) — 6 days, ~900 mi - [The Trace & the Delta Loop](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/trace-delta-week) — 7 days, ~1000 mi - [The Civil Rights Pilgrimage](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/civilrights-week) — 7 days, ~900 mi - [The Deep South Grand Circle](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/deep-south-circle) — 14 days, ~1700 mi - [The Hot Tamale Trail](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/tamale-trail) — 2 days, ~160 mi - [The Whole Hog](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/whole-hog) — 28 days, ~4300 mi --- Canonical URL: https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/delta-101 Publisher: Dixie Media (Dixie Road Trip, https://dixieroadtrip.com/) Last updated: 2026-10-04