Place to see: Highway 61, Memphis, Tennessee, United States

About this place:

Stretching all the way from Chicago to New Orleans, driving down Highway 61 is like taking a trip into the past--especially on the stretch between Memphis, Tennessee and the Deltas of Mississippi and Louisiana. This section is known as the 'Blues Highway' and the route will take you through a landscape of old juke joints, BBQ havens, and cotton fields where bluesmen like Robert Johnson, Son House,and Muddy Waters worked in the sun. Of course a trip down Highway 61 would be incomplete without a visit to its heart: Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Clarksdale is the home of the Delta blues and it shows. Key spots in the small town include the Delta Blues Museum, Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero blues club, and the infamous crossroads where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil. While you're there, pick up some vinyl of modern day guitar-slingers at the Cat Head record store.

End your trip of the historic highway by enjoying the more modern-day marvels of Memphis, Tennessee. Boasting some of the country's best BBQ (check out Cozy Corner, Interstate BBQ, and Central BBQ), live blues music at locations like BB King's, and the open-air fun of Beale Street, Memphis is a vacation unlike any other.