Tag: travel

Many a song has been written about Tennessee. Countless artists have dedicated their work to her beauty, drawing inspiration from her mountains and waterways. And now, the Volunteer State can claim another love letter of sorts—a luxury hotel called the Tennessean that honors its birthplace at every turn.

I’d long been curious about the Grand Hotel. My husband visited as a boy and has fond memories of it. One story in particular stands out.

Spared by Sherman’s troops during the Civil War, Beaufort is among the South’s most well-preserved cities. Think quiet streets lined with antebellum homes painted in soft pastels, centuries-old oaks draped with Spanish moss, and historic churches set among residences and businesses.

In North Carolina, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians found a way to take care of their people: In 1997, they opened a casino on their lands. Now South Carolina’s Catawba tribe wants to do the same. But there is a problem.

You feel the life there. It touches all your senses. Every little bit of land is living; it’s got movement. The sounds you hear are sounds you don’t hear anywhere else on the planet.

If you think pimento cheese is undeniably Southern—well, you’re wrong. According to expert Emily Wallace, who penned her thesis on the spread’s history, the “pâté of the South” was actually invented in New York in the early twentieth century.

Though he has lived in sizable metropoles including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Toronto (where he’s filming his current sci-fi horror series V Wars), nothing comes close to the allure of the tiny towns in southeastern Louisiana that provided the backdrop for his formative years.

In the South, there’s plenty of shoreline to satisfy that deep yearning, but some Southern beaches are more tucked-away than others. In fact, that’s part of their charm. We’ve tracked down some of these hidden gems, and we think you’ll agree they were well worth the search.