Elvis fans flocking to Memphis

Jason Cochran, with "Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Magazine," recommends making reservations for Elvis Week, or wait until later in the year to visit.

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(CNN) -- Elvis fans are flocking to Memphis, Tennessee, this week to remember the rock 'n' roll legend 25 years after his death. Many will visit Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley. The mansion's now a tourist stop that attracts 650,000 people a year honoring the king of rock 'n' roll.

Jason Cochran, a senior editor with "Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Magazine," joined CNN's Leon Harris to talk about Memphis and other Elvis travel destinations.

HARRIS: What are some of your Elvis destinations that you've suggest we go check out?

COCHRAN: What I was thinking was, if you can't get into Graceland itself this week, there are a lot of things around Memphis itself that you can see if you have really got the Elvis jones going on. One of them, of course, being all of the other Elvis-owned properties inside of Memphis. And one of them is the restaurant Elvis Presley's Memphis; it serves Elvis' favorite food, pretty moderately priced, right there on Beale Street in Memphis. And, of course, Beale Street is famous for the place where blues was imported from the Delta and brought to mainstream America. Elvis did a lot of his shopping right there on Beale Street.

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HARRIS: That's right. What else is on Beale Street to check out, though?

COCHRAN: Beale Street happens to be one of the original four historic sites that the National Historic Registry put in place in the '60s. There are a lot of blues clubs there, popular with tourists. A lot of it has been lost over the years, but you still have a few old theaters, W.C. Handy's old home, things like that.

HARRIS: What about Graceland Too? I heard there is a place called Graceland Too but it's not exactly in Memphis.

COCHRAN: No, that's in Holly Springs in northern Mississippi, about an hour southeast from Memphis. It's a place owned by a guy named Paul McCloud, who was probably the world's biggest Elvis fan. For about $5, you can show up at his house, any time, day or night, three in the morning, it doesn't matter. You walk right in, and he will show you all of his Elvis memorabilia. He has hundreds of thousands of clippings. He sleeps in front of a bank of televisions, so he records every single passing reference to Elvis.

I bet tomorrow, if you go, this interview will be on there.

HARRIS: You've got to be kidding me. Is his psychiatrist on the speed dial, too? Good grief. That's kind of going overboard.

COCHRAN: Yes, you'll want to bring a friend.

HARRIS: How about hotels? If I decide to go there, where is the best place to say?

COCHRAN: Well, right now, they are really full up. They're expecting as many as 75,000 people for Elvis Week. That's twice as many as they usually get this week of the year. So what you should do is head out to west Memphis, which is right over the Mississippi River, in Arkansas. You can find hotel rooms for about $40 there.

Another idea is you drive down to northwestern Mississippi, in Tunica County. There are about 10 giant casino hotels about a half hour away from Memphis, and they'll sell you a room for about $30 a night. Not a single room is less than a decade old, so it's actually a pretty good deal if you can't get in Memphis itself.

HARRIS: What's happening in Tupelo, Elvis' birthplace?

COCHRAN: Oh, yes, of course. Tupelo is, of course, the birthplace of Elvis, and they are very proud of that, and I think that they believe it's better than Graceland, because it's where Elvis came from. You can see the shack where he was born. It's pretty much just a two-room shotgun shack. He was born there and lived there the first few years of his life, and then he moved up to Memphis. And when he was rich and famous in the '50s, he brought it back and bequeathed it to Tupelo, which he was very fond of, as a park in his own name. You can see it for about $2. It's very inexpensive.

HARRIS: It's obviously easy to get into there. How about Graceland, or any other site that does have a definite link to Elvis, and his legacy and his family? Are they easy to have access to?

COCHRAN: This week?

HARRIS: Yes.

COCHRAN: No, this week it's a bit crowded. You need to make reservations at least three or four days in advance this week, and it'll be very crowded. But next week, the crowds will thin out again, and you can see it probably without much of a wait at all.

HARRIS: All right. If I'm the kind of guy that wants to take in an Elvis tour and get my Elvis jones taken care of, can I do it with my kids?

COCHRAN: Of course, kids love Elvis. As you might remember, "Lilo and Stitch," the Disney movie that came out in June, had a lot of Elvis songs in it. I have a friend with a 3-year-old who dances to Elvis every morning in the living room, and you wouldn't think the new generation would understand it, but they love him, too. He is eternal.

HARRIS: Have you tried any of the food at the Elvis restaurant?

COCHRAN: Unfortunately, I have. It is really good, but I'm afraid I might go the way of an early death like Elvis if I have too much of it. Deep fried pickle chips, by the way, are my favorite. Just take regular pickle chips, deep fry them, dip them in ranch dressing, a meal fit for a King.