Memphis Travel Tips: Costs to Know Before You Go

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use.

Memphis travel tips: the numbers that matter

Generic Memphis advice is everywhere. These 8 are the specific numbers, the tax rate, the trolley fare, the safety line worth actually repeating, that keep a Memphis trip running smoothly and on budget.

  1. Sales tax is steeper than it looks. Memphis runs a combined 9.75% sales tax, and unlike some states, Tennessee applies it to restaurant food too, so a menu price is never your final price. Budget the extra 10% mentally before you order.
  2. Tip the standard US 18-20%. Sit-down restaurants expect it, and no service charge is built into the bill automatically, worth knowing if you’re used to a country where tipping is optional or already included.
  3. MEM airport sits about 8 miles southeast of downtown, roughly 15 minutes by car. Delta is the largest carrier here, flying out of a single consolidated concourse; Uber and Lyft both pick up at the arrivals curb, no need to prebook a transfer.
  4. A car or rideshare is effectively required beyond downtown. Downtown, Beale Street and South Main are walkable and trolley-served, but Graceland, Stax, Sun Studio’s midtown edge and Shelby Farms all sit a drive away.
  5. The Main St Trolley runs $1 a ride or $2 for a day pass, Main St line only, the Riverfront and Madison lines are suspended. It has a history of service pauses, verify it’s actually running before you build a plan around it.
  6. Time your trip for April-early June or mid-September-early November. Summers run hot and humid, frequently past 90F, and spring (March-May) carries genuine tornado and severe-storm risk, a weather-radar app is worth checking rather than worrying blind.
  7. The real safety risk is car break-ins, not violence. Memphis Police’s own line for it is “Stow It, Don’t Show It,” nothing left visible in a parked car. Beale Street is unusually well-secured on weekend nights, a $5 security fee after 9pm on busy Friday, Saturday and holiday nights, plus ID checks, bag checks and metal detectors.
  8. Memphis, Tennessee has no UNESCO site, despite the name. The UNESCO-listed “Memphis and its Necropolis” is in Egypt, a different city on a different river that just happens to share the name; Memphis, TN was named after it, but carries no UNESCO designation of its own, a fact worth knowing before you repeat the myth to a fellow traveler.

Do you need cash?

Mostly no, cards work at hotels, sit-down restaurants and the marquee sights, but a few BBQ institutions, Payne’s Bar-B-Q among them, run cash-only, keep a small amount on hand for exactly that.

Is Memphis safe for a solo or budget traveler?

Yes, with the same ordinary precautions any US city calls for. The citywide violent-crime rate reads high against the national average, but 2026 logged the lowest violent-crime half-year on record here, down roughly 31.5% year over year, and it concentrates outside the tourist core, not inside it.

Pair these with where to stay in Memphis to pick a district against this list, and things to do in Memphis for what these numbers actually apply to. Building the full trip, the main Memphis guide ties the tax, tipping and safety numbers above into one daily budget.