The Best Hotels in Memphis

Trains still pull into the station, which makes this hotel in the South Main district one of the few places you can check in and watch an Amtrak roll past the window. The rooms sit inside a restored rail terminal, part of the Curio Collection by Hilton, with a bar built around Memphis music history and a restaurant doing French brasserie cooking through a Southern lens. The neighborhood is mid-comeback, which keeps it interesting.

Animal-print carpets and hand-painted murals set the tone at The Memphian, a Midtown hotel in Overton Square that feels less like a place to sleep and more like a gallery that ran out of wall space. Rooms range from compact kings to suites with freestanding tubs, all carrying the same offbeat flair. The rooftop bar, Tiger and Peacock, has a celestial painted ceiling and cocktail-fueled views that the lobby art can't quite compete with.