What’s it like visiting Elvis’s Graceland in Memphis?

On a recent visit to Memphis, Tennessee, I couldn’t resist stopping by Elvis Presley’s Graceland home for a visit. My mom was a huge Elvis fan, and his music always played in our house, especially at Christmas time.

I’d actually visited once before while on a business trip to Memphis in the 1990’s. I took a quick tour, which lasted about one hour. Other than the mansion itself, there wasn’t much more to see. Boy, was I surprised when I returned this year! Let me tell you all about it!

Graceland has a nice website to help you plan out your visit and buy tickets online. There are various tours from which to choose. We got the “Elvis Experience Tour,” which averages 3.5 – 4 hours. That was about how much time we spent. If you are someone who wants to read every information plaque you could easily spend another hour or two more. The “Elvis Experience Tour” included an interactive iPad tour of Graceland Mansion, checking out Elvis’s planes, and entry to the exhibits.

When you first arrive, go into the building straight ahead from the parking lot pictured above. Inside, it’s kind of like checking in at the airport. You’ll be placed in a line for your tour. Before you board the shuttle bus, which will drive you across Elvis Presley Boulevard to the mansion, each person gets an iPad with headphones and a strap so you can hang it around your neck. You use this for your self-guided tour through the mansion and its grounds. After a little fiddling around, it was pretty intuitive to use.

Elvis’s music and videos are playing while you wait in line, and it was a great reminder of how beautiful his voice (and he himself) was! What an amazing talent!

Next, you stand at the front door where a guide will give you the rundown on what to expect and remind you not to touch things, etc. Then you enter the house. I was surprised at how small it was. For a “mansion” I’d pictured something larger, but the over-the-top decor makes up for the modest size!

Seeing the dining room was touching when the audio recording described their family dinners there, including mentioning that Lisa Marie Presley would still have her family’s holiday dinners there up until her 2023 death.

The tour ends with the Meditation Garden, where Elvis, Lisa Marie, and other family members have been laid to rest. It’s hard not to shed a tear after having just immersed yourself in their lives for the past hour!

Next, we hopped back on a shuttle bus to return across the road to see Elvis’s airplanes. There’s the “Lisa Marie,” a 1958 Convair 880 that Elv spent $800,000 on remodeling into the swank haven we can now see!

There’s also a smaller Lockheed Jet Star plane you can peek in to see the wondrous green and yellow decor. Sorry, somehow, I missed taking a picture of it.

After that, it was back to the main building where we started. You enter an enormous warehouse that goes on and on! I couldn’t believe how many exhibits there were. I kept thinking we must be done, but no, yet another exhibit. I’m not complaining, but I was genuinely astounded at how much memorabilia exists for this one person!

Here’s a selection from the Elvis Presley Automobile Museum, a huge car collection. Even for someone who is not a “car person” (ie. me) some of these are beautiful!

There are many gift shops scattered throughout the exhibits, with tons of Graceland salt shakers, oven mitts, Christmas ornaments, t-shirts, and anything else you can think of! Here we tried on some Elvis shades:

There’s an arcade / interactive exhibit where you can play Elvis-related games. Here, we virtually tried on Elvis attire. You could then email the image to yourself or anyone.

Probably my favorite exhibit was of the costumes. Amazing how many he had.

There are also exhibits featuring costumes and entire sets from the recent Baz Luhrman Elvis movie, and thousands of Elvis’s personal belongings and Gold Records etc. on display.

I’d say that even a casual Elvis fan would enjoy visiting Graceland for its slice of Americana, at the very least. What an amazing phenomenon Elvis’s journey was. We wondered if there is any other person whose life has made so much money for so many other people! Hard to imagine the amount of money that is still being made off of Elvis almost 50 years after his death. After seeing his cars, golf carts, and other toys, it was good to know that Elvis himself got to enjoy some of that wealth before his early passing at age 42 in August 1977.

Memphis Notes

*We stayed at the La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Memphis Downtown. This clean, reasonably priced hotel is within walking distance of Beale Street. Breakfast is included in the rate.

*Check out the Peabody Hotel. It’s a beautiful, historic building with a gorgeous lobby. It was opened in 1869. Totally wacky tradition: A group of Mallard Ducks live on the hotel’s roof, and each day, they are escorted down to the lobby, where they hang out in the lobby pond. This has been a tradition for the past 90 years. Don’t miss their parade through the lobby at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily.

*Beale Street – Be sure to visit Beale Street when you’re in Memphis! It has such a great vibe. We ate dinner at the BB Kings Blues Club. Great food and excellent live music. And the music wasn’t too loud! That’s becoming one of my top priorities these days!

Please let me know in the comments if you have any Graceland or Memphis advice! Thanks for reading!

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