Skyline of Memphis as seen from the Hernando de Soto Bridge
Driving - Travel by car is really the only way to get around Memphis if you want to do anything other than see Downtown.
Public Transit - Bus service provided by the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) is available across the city. Some routes are very poorly served in the evenings. At nights and weekends some buses take a different route than during the day which can be a trap for visitors.
A trolley operates downtown and into Midtown, mostly for the benefit of tourists.
Memphis is laid out in a more or less east/west fashion. Roads primarily go east/west and north/south. The expressway fortunately cuts directly through the city.
Downtown is on the west; it sits atop the bluffs, overlooking the mighty Mississippi River. (It is referred to as Downtown, not as West Memphis, which is a town just across the river in Arkansas.) Moving east you'll come to Midtown, a charming part of the city thought by some as the best part of Memphis. Beyond that, you will find East Memphis, and then the suburbs of Germantown, Collierville, Cordova, and Bartlett. The area between downtown and Midtown, referred to by locals as "Crosstown," is coming to life slowly but surely. There is a movement to turn it into an artist community. Members of this movement call the area "the Edge". However, most of the "art district" is on South Main.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Memphis
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Memphis - updated May 2024
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Memphis Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
