Savannah

Laid out on a high bluff above the Savannah River on 12 February 1733 by British General James Edward Oglethorpe as the very first city of the thirteenth American colony of Georgia, on the ancestral homeland of the Yamacraw and Creek (Muscogee) Nations led by Chief Tomochichi, Savannah preserves one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United States. Spared from burning by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in December 1864, who famously telegraphed President Abraham Lincoln offering the intact city of Savannah as a Christmas gift, its visionary 1733 town grid known as the Oglethorpe Plan survives almost untouched three centuries later.

What makes walking through Savannah feel like stepping into an outdoor botanical cathedral is its network of 22 park-like Historic Squares spaced every two blocks beneath a continuous emerald canopy of 300-year-old live oak trees festooned with trailing silver-grey Spanish moss. Running down the central spine of Bull Street to the 1858 cast-iron fountain of 30-acre Forsyth Park, the city steps down forty-foot brick bluffs at the northern riverfront via Factors Walk onto cobblestone River Street and the Plant Riverside District. Fifteen minutes south-east toward the salt marshes lie the Victorian sculptures of Bonaventure Cemetery, the 1.5-mile live-oak tunnel of Wormsloe Historic Site, and the Atlantic sands of Tybee Island. Start with our before-you-go briefing and top things to do in Savannah.

Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) sits just 16 kilometres (20 minutes by taxi, ride-hail or the CAT Route 100X Airport Express bus) northwest of the Historic District. Amtrak's Palmetto and Silver Service trains from New York, Washington D.C., Charleston and Miami arrive daily at the Savannah Station 10 minutes west of downtown. Once inside the Historic District, leave your vehicle in one of the five affordable municipal parking garages (free on weekends at selected lots; check current daily rates on the city site) and explore on foot, via the complimentary DOT Express Shuttle buses, and aboard the free Savannah Belles passenger ferries across the river. See getting to Savannah and how the free DOT shuttle and ferries work.

Savannah's accommodation is divided into four charismatic zones: stay around the Historic District Squares (between Bay Street and Gaston Street/Forsyth Park) to wake up in an 1850s Federal or Italianate mansion inn facing a mossy square; stay along River Street and the Plant Riverside District if you want lively waterfront rooftops, live music and giant cargo ships passing fifty metres from your balcony; stay just south of Forsyth Park in the Victorian District or Thomas Square/Starland for quieter B&Bs and easier street parking; or base yourself 20 minutes east on the beach at Tybee Island. Compare all areas in where to stay in Savannah.

Photograph the 1858 cast-iron fountain in Forsyth Park and walk north up Bull Street through Monterey, Madison and Chippewa Squares, stroll brick-paved Jones Street and explore all 22 Historic Squares, cross the iron catwalk bridges of Factors Walk down to River Street and the Plant Riverside District, wander beneath the moss-draped oaks of 1846 Bonaventure Cemetery and tour the Mercer Williams House, drive down the 400-tree avenue of Wormsloe Historic Site, step inside the twin-spired Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and Owens-Thomas House, join an evening lantern ghost walk, visit 1773 First African Baptist Church and Pin Point, and swim at Tybee Island and Fort Pulaski. Full list in things to do in Savannah.

Savannah is a capital of Coastal Georgia Lowcountry and Southern cuisine: wild Georgia white shrimp over stone-ground cheddar grits, Lowcountry Boil (shrimp, smoked sausage, corn on the cob and red potatoes steamed in coastal spices), crispy fried chicken and 22 family-style vegetable bowls at historic Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room, modern Southern cooking inside a 1938 Greyhound bus depot at The Grey, warm honey-glazed biscuits, hand-scooped Tutti-Frutti at 1919 Leopold's Ice Cream, and hot butter-pecan Savannah Pralines on River Street. Read more in our Savannah food and dining guide.

Immortalised in John Berendt's 1994 bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and home to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD, which rescued and restored over 70 historic buildings across the city), Savannah blends Gullah Geechee Lowcountry heritage, Irish-American history and Southern Gothic charm.