If you’re traveling along the southern Mississippi River, there are lots of interesting attractions to visit, whether you’re interested in music history, stories of life on the river, or unique hands-on educational experiences. Here are four museums you should visit on your next Great River Road trip.

Find more Great River Road Interpretive Centers here.

Delta Blues Museum, Mississippi

Blues lovers shouldn’t miss the place where this uniquely American genre of music was born: Mississippi’s Delta region. Clarksdale, located about 75 miles south of Memphis, is home to the Delta Blues Museum, which features exhibits and artifacts that tell the story of blues music and its legends, from Muddy Waters and Son House to Robert Johns and Howlin’ Wolf.

Discovery Park of America, Tennessee

This state-of-the-art 100,000-square-foot museum in Union City in northwestern Tennessee boasts a bevy of interesting exhibits across 10 galleries, with interactive displays on everything from local Native American cultures to outer space to natural history. The facility is also home to a 50-acre outdoor heritage park that features a manmade river, waterfalls, bridges, and other scenic features.

The Louisiana Great River Road Interpretive Center and Museum

Located on the grounds of the historic Houmas House Estate and Gardens outside of New Orleans, the Great River Road Interpretive Center and Museum shares the story of the lower Mississippi River with visitors, highlighting the waterway’s effects on transportation, commerce, music, and river life. The 35,000-square-foot museum is designed to resemble a Mississippi River steamboat, and visitors can also look out on the Mighty Mississippi at an overlook that’s reached via a pedestrian bridge over the Great River Road.

Delta Cultural Center, Arkansas

Learn about the people, industry, and history of the Arkansas Delta at this museum complex in Helena, which is about a 70-mile drive south of Memphis on the Arkansas side of the river. The center’s Depot building—a renovated 1912 railroad station—features several permanent exhibits that educate visitors about the history and geography of the Delta. The Cherry Street Pavilion outside the Depot is the site of annual King Biscuit Blues Festival.

Photo: Discovery Park of America