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If you need one good reason to travel to Mississippi, we’ll give you five. From tunes to tables, trails, and time-honored history, here’s everything you need to know and where to go across the Magnolia State.
Memorable Meals
If Mississippi’s food scene isn’t your first thought when planning a trip, it soon will be. Here, you’ll find dishes unheard of elsewhere, like slugburgers, a Depression-era favorite of a young Elvis Presley. Delta tamales pull influence from Mexican immigrants and are now found throughout the towns around the Mississippi River. And, of course, catfish is proudly farmed in the state’s waters, and served fried to perfection at countless restaurants.
Chefs from around the state are also earning national recognition for their cuisines. Jackson native Hunter Evans cut his teeth at top New York restaurants before returning to open Elvie’s in his hometown. Food Network star Nick Wallace opened The Nissan Cafe at Jackson’s Two Mississippi Museums with gumbo and sandwiches. Enrika Williams is the chef-owner of Fauna Foodworks, a culinary food lab hosting dinner series and pop-ups around the state. James Beard nominee Austin Sumrall is the chef-owner of White Pillars, a Gulf Coast classic, and, most recently, Siren Social Club. Belhaven’s own Chaz Lindsay also returned to his Jackson neighborhood to open Pulito Osteria, featuring dishes from Rome and beyond.
Coastal Mississippi has excellent food, especially seafood pulled straight from the Gulf of Mexico. The shrimp boats set up near the Biloxi casinos and provide the freshest catch straight to your favorite restaurants.
The Birthplace of American Music
Name a significant American musician from the past century, and they’re almost certain to have ties to Mississippi. It’s known as the “birthplace of the blues,” but the state also has ties to rock and roll and country music. The likes of Elvis, B.B. King, Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, Faith Hill, and Jimmie Rodgers all hail from around the Magnolia State.
The Mississippi Blues Trail highlights many of the important places within the genre, as do the red signs of the Country Music Trail. At the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland, learn about the many artists with connections to the state, with exhibits on the award-winning artists. See where famous names were made at the shotgun cabin where Elvis grew up in his hometown of Tupelo, and the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola.
Headed to Tupelo? Here’s everything you need to know.
Clarksdale is called “ground zero for the blues” for a reason. You can throw a stone and probably hit somewhere significant to the genre, whether it’s the active venues where big names perform or the places where acts of the past stayed during their visits.
Authors & Artists
The literary impact of Mississippi is unmatched, with authors like William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, John Grisham, and Tennessee Williams pulling their influences from real places. Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, is now a museum in Oxford, where he wrote some of his most famous works.
The state’s long tradition of arts and crafts is on display at museums around the region, including Jackson’s Mississippi Museum of Art, which boasts one of the largest collections of works from Mississippi artists. The Waller Crafts Center in Ridgeland has both exhibit space and galleries for artists and craftsmen to sell their work. The Walter Anderson Museum is another must-see, with murals and paintings by the namesake artist.
Meridian is the state’s underrated arts hub, home to The MAX, also known as the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience. The space has permanent exhibits on the state’s ties to music, with an active recording studio and a hall of fame.
A Look into the Past
If something significant has happened in the last 250 years of American history, there’s likely been some connection to Mississippi. The state was home to several indigenous tribes, including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and their ancestral trading routes became the basis for what we now know as the Natchez Trace Parkway. Several of their ceremonial mounds are still standing.
Jackson’s Two Mississippi Museums are set alongside one another and encompass 15,000 years of civilization. The Museum of Mississippi History covers Indigenous history, the Civil War, and the industries of the state. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum goes even deeper, highlighting the important people in the movement.
The Great Outdoors
You might not be thinking about nature when it comes to Mississippi, but the state has stunning scenery from the wide curves of the Mississippi River to the beaches of the coast. The Natchez Trace Parkway is among the nation’s most scenic drives, starting in Tennessee and ending, of course, in Natchez. Not just a battlefield, Vicksburg Military Park features nearly 2,000 acres of space filled with monuments and memorials.
College football culture is an experience in itself, whether you’re celebrating in the Grove in Oxford or preparing to cheer on your team from The Junction in Starkville. Both towns are well-known for their love of football, so plan your visit for the fall to take it all in.
This article is presented in partnership with Visit Mississippi, a Modern South Founding Partner.
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