Tag: travel

When you live in landlocked Tennessee, taking small children to the beach is kind of like childbirth: long and painful at times, but ultimately worth it. Eventually, you wind up forgetting the hard parts and want to do it all over again. After eight-plus hours in a car bound for Amelia Island, Florida, I wasn’t so sure that was going to happen this time.

On Jekyll Island, Georgia, the glittering era has been carefully preserved in numerous historical structures, most notably the Jekyll Island Club Hotel.

When I consider all the hours I spend in traffic, it’s downright distressing. That’s why, when it comes to vacations, I opt to go somewhere serene and congestion-free—somewhere like Bald Head Island.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., may draw more than a million visitors, but the city’s 3,750 cherry trees pale in comparison to Macon’s 350,000. Here’s how the Southern celebration stacks up to its counterpart in the nation’s capital.

Twenty miles south of Nashville, Franklin’s downtown is lined with boutiques, restaurants, art galleries, and specialty shops, with scarcely a chain store in sight.

Craving an Alpine fix? The peaks in North Carolina’s High Country may be less prodigious than those in Aspen, Stowe, or Park City, but the southernmost winter wonderland is just a five-hour drive away.

While the city has mandatory tourist stops (the famed Bellingrath Gardens, the battleship USS Alabama, and the new-and-spectacular GulfQuest museum), to understand the city, you must visit its neighborhoods.

Monday morning Governor Nathan Deal and a host of local and state dignitaries capped off a weekend-long celebration marking the “rededication” of Jekyll Island.

If you call yourself a Southerner, then Alabama’s “Christmas in Dixie” is certainly on your holiday playlist. Now, let those same lyrics fill your calendar.

At Blackberry Farm, Jekyll Island Club Hotel, Chetola Resort, and Royal Sonesta, impressive Thanksgiving spreads are just a reservation away.