• Travel the historic Natchez Trace Parkway (website: www.nps.gov/natr) that winds 640km (400 miles) southwest from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi. Free of billboard advertising and commercial traffic, and with a speed limit of 80kph (50mph), the parkway provides a scenic introduction to the delights of Mississippi and leads visitors down paths once trekked by buffalo, Native Americans and frontiersmen.

• Visit Tupelo, best known for its native son, Elvis Presley. Visitors can stop at Elvis Presley's Birthplace (website: www.elvispresleybirthplace.com), the humble two-room house where ‘the King' was born, and the adjacent museum which contains rare photos, memorabilia and a statue of Elvis aged 13.

• Sample Mississippi's vibrant blues tradition at the Delta Blues Museum (website: www.deltabluesmuseum.org) in Clarksdale.

• Join the spring or fall pilgrimages in Natchez (website: www.natchezms.com), touring some of the area's 500 remaining antebellum mansions. Walk through Longwood, the largest octagonal house in America, nestled among huge oaks hung with dripping Spanish moss.

• Explore the Old Capitol Historical Museum, containing exhibits chronicling the Civil Rights Movement, while the Smith Robertson Museum houses displays on African-American Mississippian history and heritage.

• Visit the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (website: www.walterandersonmuseum.org) in Ocean Springs, on Mississippi's Gulf Coast. Anderson's art reflects coastal life and the amazing variety of birds that migrate along this Mississippi Flyway.

• Take the family to Leland (website: www.lelandms.org), where Kermit the Frog was born. See the Birthplace of the Frog exhibition where the childhood of Jim Henson, creator of the Sesame Street and Muppets characters, can be remembered.

• Enjoy the haunting sounds of blues music at the Highway 61 Blues Museum (website: www.highway61blues.com) in downtown Leland.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.