Graceland offering excursions to Tupelo, Mississippi Delta

Memphis Commercial Appeal

A statue of a 13-year-old Elvis Presley stands before the church he attended as a child in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Graceland has a new offering for true Elvis fans — day trips via a luxury bus to Presley's Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace and to the Mississippi Delta.

The Elvis Presley's Graceland Facebook page, in a post dated Wednesday, touts Graceland Excursions as "expertly guided motor coach tours of major music landmarks and museums in Tupelo, Mississippi, and the Mississippi Delta." The trips are billed as the "ideal complement to the Graceland tour experience."

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According to the Graceland Excursions web page, preview excursions are planned for December and January. Tupelo excursions are set for Dec. 16 and Jan. 8, while Mississippi Delta excursions will be Dec. 29 and Jan. 4. Tickets can be purchased now on the site, $99 for adults and $79 for children for the Tupelo trip or $119 for adults and $89 for children for the Delta trip.

The Tupelo trip includes stops at Elvis' birthplace; Tupelo Hardware Company, where his mother Gladys bought Elvis' first guitar; and a driving tour of Tupelo.

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The Delta excursion focuses places that made the blues famous, including a stop in the city of Clarksdale, where the blues began; the Delta Blues Museum; the Mississippi Grammy Museum in Cleveland; and Southern Sounds at Dockery Farms, where musicians invented the blues genre around the beginning of the 20th Century.

The website estimates the Tupelo trip at about seven hours and the Delta trip at about eight hours.

The excursions are the latest in Graceland's efforts to expand the Elvis legacy. One of those efforts, a planned 6,200-seat concert hall, ran into problems because of a non-compete agreement with the NBA Memphis Grizzlies at FedExForum. Elvis Presley Enterprises, which operates Graceland, on Wednesday announced it would challenge the non-compete agreement in court.

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In a separate effort not affiliated with Elvis Presley Enterprises, a Florida developer is hoping to turn Presley's former ranch in nearby Horn Lake, Mississippi, into a tourist destination complementing Graceland.

For full details, visit graceland.com/excursions.