Page 19 - Flipbook

If you’re keen to head off on a rock ‘n’ roll pilgrimage outside of Australia though, these holiday ideas themed around the rocking ’50s and ’60s should fit the bill nicely.
lAS vEgAS FOR ElviS FANS
Die-hard Elvis fans should head from Graceland straight to Las Vegas to catch one of the many sell-out shows featuring Elvis lookalikes. The Las Vegas Hotel & Casino’s Elvis show is one of the better ones. It’s here in fact that the real Elvis once reigned supreme, performing an incredible 837 times.
You’ll be able to take a photograph with Elvis on any Vegas street corner, but it’s also possible to go one further and
have him officiate at your wedding. The Graceland Wedding Chapel and Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel both offer Elvis- themed packages.
THE ElviS TOUR
No true rock ‘n’ roll fan would miss the chance to visit Graceland – Elvis’s home in Memphis, Tennessee. The house is now a museum that you can tour, and the shop sells all sorts of Elvis paraphernalia. (Adult tickets from $32-$70).
If you still can’t get enough of the King after a visit to Graceland then there’s always the Elvis Presley Car Museum – home to all 33 of Elvis’s cars – to explore as well.
While in Memphis, it’s worth paying a trip too to Sun Studios, where many of rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous musicians, including Elvis, recorded their albums (Adult tickets: $12 plus tax).
Graceland attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and is a little like a theme park these days with more wandering Elvis impersonators than a Vegas convention, but a trip to Tupelo in Mississippi, birthplace of the king of rock ‘n’ roll offers an intriguing look at Elvis’s early life and influences.
Visitors can tour the modest two-roomed house where Elvis was born and raised, the church where he learned to play guitar and take a look around the museum dedicated to the crooner. There’s even an annual Elvis festival held over the first weekend in June ($20 entry).
SURF BAllROOM, ClEAR lAKE, iOwA
After playing a gig in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, famous musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper climbed aboard a small private plane headed to the next destination on their tour schedule. The plane crashed just a few minutes after take-off, killing everyone on board and leaving people to proclaim this date in 1959 as the day the music died.
The Surf Ballroom remains forever frozen in the 1950s, paying homage to these musical legends. Entry is donation only and the tour is self-guided, but it’s well worth handing over a few bucks for, if only to gaze in awe at all the original décor.
Just a few kilometres away you can also visit the crash site and monument to the well-loved rockers.
SAN FRANCiSCO pSYCHEdEliC
Over on the west coast of America, in San Francisco, the birthplace of the ’60s hippie movement still draws a steady influx of visitors keen to visit the Haight-Ashbury area where it all began.
Take a Flower Power Walking Tour, following in the footsteps of Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, and learn all about how rock ‘n’ roll influenced everything from politics to fashion in this exuberant city.
ENDLESS VACATION 17