# Memphis to New Orleans on US 61 A 4-day, ~500-mile Southern road trip from Memphis. It chains The Blues Highway and River Road & the Felicianas. - **Days:** 4 - **Distance:** ~500 mi - **Starts in:** Memphis - **Themes:** Music, History, Food - **Routes chained:** [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61), [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) The full Highway 61 run, river to river: the Delta's jukes and shrines, Vicksburg's bluffs, Natchez's mansions and the Felicianas, then the levee road into the Crescent City. ## Why this itinerary works Starting in Memphis, this 4-day itinerary connects The Blues Highway and River Road & the Felicianas. It suits travellers interested in barbecue, boudin, oysters & tamales; blues, country, jukes & jamborees; battlefields, the movement & the past. The day-by-day bases let you split roughly 500 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 before the heat, then 61 south: Gateway to the Blues in the old Tunica depot, the Crossroads sign at 61 and 49 (it is a sign; manage expectations), the Delta Blues Museum until it closes. Juke night at Red's or Ground Zero — whichever has a band, and ask, because the schedule is a rumor. Overnight Clarksdale. 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 → Vicksburg Dockery Farms at opening, the Grammy Museum in Cleveland, B.B. King's museum in Indianola, then east to Greenwood for the Robert Johnson grave most people settle on, at Little Zion. Back west for tamales at Doe's in Greenville, and the levee miles down to Vicksburg's bluffs by dusk. Overnight Vicksburg. Highlights to consider: - **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) - **Emmett Till Interpretive Center** (Sumner) — The restored 1955 courthouse where the murderers were acquitted in 67 minutes, and where the county issued its formal apology in 2007. The center's guided story is the strongest hour in the Delta. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **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) - **B.B. King Museum** (Indianola) — World-class museum wrapped around the brick gin where B.B. worked; he's buried on the grounds. Club Ebony, the chitlin'-circuit landmark he later bought, stands nearby. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Doe's Eat Place** (Greenville) — Tamales and gigantic porterhouses out of a 1941 grocery storefront — enter through the kitchen. Greenville is the hub of the Delta's Hot Tamale Trail (ask about the festival each October). [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) ### Day 3: Vicksburg → St. Francisville The military park first, while the markers are readable, then what is left of Margaret's Grocery on old 61. Port Gibson, the Windsor Ruins down their gravel road, and Natchez: the mansions held against the Forks of the Road memorial a mile away, which is the whole point. South into the Felicianas on 61 — from here you are driving River Road & the Felicianas north to south, the reverse of how the atlas draws it. A night at the Myrtles if you want the ghost story with your breakfast, or in town if you don't. Highlights to consider: - **Margaret's Grocery** (Vicksburg) — Rev. H.D. Dennis promised Margaret a castle and built one from cinderblock, paint and scripture — 'ALL IS WELCOME, JEWS AND GENTILES.' Viewable from the road while preservationists work. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Port Gibson** (Port Gibson) — 'Too beautiful to burn,' Grant supposedly said while marching through. The golden hand atop First Presbyterian has pointed heavenward since 1859. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Windsor Ruins** (Lorman) — Twenty-three Corinthian columns alone in the woods — all that's left of Mississippi's grandest mansion, which survived the war only to burn from a party guest's cigarette in 1890. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **Natchez** (Natchez) — More antebellum mansions than anywhere (the millionaires sat out the war); Longwood's unfinished octagon — workers dropped tools in 1861 and never came back. Hold both: the Forks of the Road slave-market memorial, and a beer at Under-the-Hill where the river men drank. [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61) - **The Myrtles** (St. Francisville) — Promoted as 'one of America's most haunted homes' — the Chloe legend, a mirror that allegedly holds spirits, and a B&B if you're brave. The town around it is the prettiest in Louisiana, ghosts or no. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) ### Day 4: St. Francisville → New Orleans The River Road the slow way, levee on one side and chemical plants on the other, no apology from either. Whitney Plantation, told from the perspective of the enslaved — give it the morning. Oak Alley's oaks from the top of the levee, free and better framed than the ticketed view. Then into the city by the old river road, which delivers you to the Riverbend streetcar line instead of an interstate ramp. Highlights to consider: - **St. Francisville** (St. Francisville) — English Louisiana: Grace Church's mossy churchyard, Rosedown's gardens, and Oakley House, where the young Audubon painted dozens of his birds as a live-in tutor. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) - **Oak Alley** (Vacherie) — The quarter-mile allée of 28 live oaks, planted a century before the 1839 house. The postcard of the Old South — read its slavery exhibit so you see the whole picture. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) - **Whitney Plantation** (Wallace) — The one museum on the river told entirely from the enslaved person's perspective (opened 2014) — memorials, first-person narratives, the Wall of Honor. The essential stop on this road; book the timed tour. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) - **Port Hudson** (Jackson, LA) — The longest true siege in American history (48 days, 1863) — and among the first major assaults by Black regiments, the Louisiana Native Guards, whose valor here helped change the Union army. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) - **Louisiana's Two Capitols** (Baton Rouge) — The crenellated Old Capitol — Mark Twain called it a 'little sham castle' and blamed Sir Walter Scott for the South's worst ideas — and Huey Long's 34-story tower, where the Kingfish was shot in 1935 and lies buried out front under his own statue. Free observation deck. [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road) ## Practical planning Budget an average of about 125 miles per day across the whole trip, or roughly 2.8–4.2 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: Clarksdale - Day 2: Vicksburg - Day 3: near St. Francisville, LA - Day 4: St. Francisville → New Orleans ### Best season & route notes - [The Blues Highway](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/blues-61): Summer is an anvil; October is perfect. - [River Road & the Felicianas](https://dixieroadtrip.com/routes/river-road): Whitney requires timed tickets; do it first and the rest of the road reads differently. ## Frequently asked questions ### How many days and miles is Memphis to New Orleans on US 61? Memphis to New Orleans on US 61 is a 4-day trip of about 500 miles. ### Where does Memphis to New Orleans on US 61 start? It starts in Memphis. ### Which routes does Memphis to New Orleans on US 61 chain together? It chains The Blues Highway and River Road & the Felicianas. ### Where are the overnight bases on Memphis to New Orleans on US 61? Day 1: Clarksdale; Day 2: Vicksburg; Day 3: near St. Francisville, LA; Day 4: St. Francisville → New Orleans. ## Related itineraries - [Delta 101](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/delta-101) — 3 days, ~420 mi - [The Natchez Trace, End to End](https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/trace-end-to-end) — 5 days, ~720 mi - [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 --- Canonical URL: https://dixieroadtrip.com/trips/memphis-to-new-orleans Publisher: Dixie Media (Dixie Road Trip, https://dixieroadtrip.com/) Last updated: 2026-10-05