Tupelo isn't the first name that springs to mind for a US road trip, but this modest Mississippi city has two big draws: it's where Elvis Presley was born, and it's about to open a major new cultural attraction. 2027 marks 50 years since Elvis's death — and the same year the long-awaited Chickasaw Heritage Center opens its doors.
The new centre tells the story of the Chickasaw people from their own perspective, covering their forced removal west in the 1830s and the culture that survives today. Visitors get an exhibition hall, an art gallery featuring past and contemporary Chickasaw artists, walking trails through the surrounding land, and a gift shop. It's positioned as Tupelo's flagship attraction and a genuine reason to linger rather than just pass through.
Then there's the King himself. Tupelo's Elvis circuit starts at the Elvis Presley Birthplace and Museum, home to the bronze "Elvis at 13" statue and the small wooden childhood church where Elvis first heard the gospel music that shaped his sound — there's a multimedia exhibition recreating what those services felt like. From there you can walk Elvis Presley Park's trails, then head to the former Tupelo Hardware Company, where his mother bought him his first guitar for his 11th birthday. That purchase changed music history; a decade later he had his first gold record. The hardware store turned 100 in 2026, and the city and local tourism board have bought the historic building, planning a museum-style preservation of the ground floor plus a new Tupelo Visitors Center. It's early days, but immersive exhibits and storytelling from locals are the goal.
Tupelo also earns its keep as a food and lodging stop. Hotel Tupelo, in the walkable Fairpark District (once the county fairgrounds), is an Elvis-inspired boutique stay with good drinks and dining nearby. The Blue Canoe serves live music and famously oversized plates — the Brown Bag Rag Bologna Sandwich stacks fried Mississippi round steak, bacon jam and a fried egg on Texas toast, with Connie's Blueberry Doughnut Bread Pudding for dessert. For something older, Johnnie's Drive-In is the city's longest-running restaurant, Elvis photographs on the walls, a booth the man himself once occupied, and a menu of doughburgers (a North Mississippi speciality), barbecue and all the fixings.
Why it matters: Tupelo sits conveniently on the drive between Nashville and New Orleans, making it an easy, worthwhile pit stop on a Southern states itinerary. Elvis fans will already be sold, but the Chickasaw Heritage Center gives 2027 travellers a second, deeper reason to spend a night or two here rather than just snapping a photo at the birthplace and moving on.
