Local Area Attractions Near Memphis KOA Journey

Memphis is packed with family vacation classics: a zoo with lions, orangutans-even pandas. A baseball field where Minor Leaguers hustle and stadium food tastes best shared. The kind of museums that field trips are made of, with firetrucks to climb on and dinosaur skeletons to gawk at.
But as it goes in Memphis, surprise: museum mainstays have evolved, adding hands-on galleries to art exhibits, touchscreen activities to history displays and slick advancements like a planetarium that stimulates real-time view of the cosmos.

Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid

Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid

It's a new national destination experience located inside the massive iconic Pyramid in Downtown Memphis, TN. This new, immersive retail experience offers something for everyone from the serious outdoor enthusiast to families looking to have fun. We are much more than just a store. Inside the expansive 535,000-square-foot pyramid are many experiences and features that offer something for everyone.

1 Bass Pro Dr

Memphis, TN 38105

901-291-8200

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BB King's Blues Club

BB King's Blues Club

This is the original iconic B.B. King's Blues Club, located at the top of Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. B. B. King's is the best restaurant, bar, and live music club on the Street. We're more than the Blues. We're classic soul, rock and roll, great barbeque, and signature drinks that will fill you to the brim. You just have to experience it because words can't describe the vibe of this place. So make your way to downtown Memphis for all that BB King's Blues Club has to offer and don't forget your blue suede shoes!

143 Beale Street

Memphis, TN 38103

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Beale Street - Downtown Memphis

Beale Street - Downtown Memphis

Beale Street was built on memories – good and bad.

Beale Street's heyday was in the roaring 20's, when it took on a carnival atmosphere. The booming nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, stores, pawnshops and hot music thrived alongside gambling, drinking, prostitution, murder and voodoo.  In the early evenings, boxback suits and Stetson hats mingled with overalls.  Young ladies sashayed down Beale Street and inside the bars, gamblers waited for an easy mark to stroll in. If the mark escaped from the dice or the cards, maybe he would fall victim to Little Ora – always ready to prove her reputation as the best pickpocket between New Orleans and St. Louis. Maybe he'd just stop over at PeeWee's and visit with the musicians, play a little pool, or secure the voodoo protection of Mary the Wonder.

By mid-evening, the street would be packed.

A one block walk could mean a detour around the medicine show set up in a little hole in the wall, as much as stopping and listening to the wandering bluesmen playing for pennies and nickels.  One club, The Monarch, was known as The Castle of Missing Men due to the fact that gunshot victims and dead gamblers could be easily disposed of at the undertaker sharing their back alley.  Machine Gun Kelly peddled bottled whiskey from a clothes basket back before moving into the ranks of big-time crime. Numerous gamblers set a box next to the card table and slid a share of the take into it for the church down the street.  There were big vaudeville shows at the Palace and the Daisy, hot snoot sandwiches at the corner café, Memphis jug bands playing down at the park, and one block over on Gayoso, the red-light district rivaled New Orleans' Storyville.

Beale Street – come down and see a Memphis jug band, Memphis blues or W.C. Handy Blues!

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Blues Hall of Fame

Blues Hall of Fame

The Blues Hall of Fame Museum is located in Memphis, Tennessee and is curated and managed by The Blues Foundation. Started in 1980 The Blues Hall of Fame recognizes performers and individuals whose lifetime of work has had a major impact upon the blues genre, as well as the music and literature that is most iconic to this musical art form. New honorees in categories of Performers, Individuals, Single Recordings, Album Recordings, and Literature are inducted each May in a ceremony held in Memphis, TN and their biographies, music and videos, and memorabilia are added to the museum to keep the content fresh. As such, the Blues Hall of Fame database is constantly growing with new annual inductees. 

The Blues Hall of Fame Museum opened in 2015 and displays instruments, stage costumes, art work,and artifacts. Read stories and see memorabilia from famous blues artists like B.B. King, W.C. Handy, Robert Johnson, Koko Taylor, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and many more. There's also an interactive database where visitors can access biographies, photos, videos, hundreds of songs and album covers related to specific artists.Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for students (age 13-18, or with college ID). Children 12 and under are free with an adult admission. Plan for 1-2 hours for the complete and interactive tour.

Cadron Settlement Park

Cadron Settlement Park

The Cadron Settlement Park played a significant role in the Trail of Tears for Native Americans. In 1834, a group of Cherokees emigrating to Oklahoma were felled by a cholera epidemic when stopped here. In 1991 the Faulkner County Historical Society conducted a cemetary census and identified almost 50 Native American grave and more that were unidentifiable.

6200 Hwy 319 W

Conway, AR 72034

501-450-6186

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