Georgia

I stumbled onto Jekyll Island’s Driftwood Beach for the first time nearly a decade ago. This was, not coincidentally, the same week that a spider wrote me a note.

It takes a lot to compete with the blockbuster-level magic of the Jurassic World film franchise, but Jurassic World: The Exhibition rises to the occasion. Billing itself as “the closest you’ll come to live...

I have a fairy godmother. She lives midway between Chattanooga and Atlanta, at a place called Barnsley Resort in Adairsville, Georgia. She knows I love peanut butter cups, salted caramels, and Champagne. And when I visited the resort on my birthday this year, she left them in my suite, along with a handwritten note to enjoy my special day.

There’s a common sentiment in Macon that downtown used to be nothing but parking lots—and now you can’t find anywhere to park. While you may have to settle for a space an extra block or two away these days, strolling around town is precisely the point of this charming central Georgia city’s cultural and social revival.

You don't think inside the box. Why sleep in one? The South is full of unexpected accommodations, from a nineteenth-century castle to a Hobbit hut to the tree house of your dreams. Let us introduce you to sixteen offerings that are anything but ordinary.

In 1968, the tiny mountain town of Helen was dying. Over lunch, three local businessmen decided the town needed to add some street appeal if it hoped to capture the interests of passersby. By the time the leaves began to turn in 1969, Alpine Helen was born.

The oldest and largest family-owned hunting lodge in the Southeast, Caryonah shines in its attention to detail, from the Italian-tiled bathrooms to the assemblage of Indian artifacts on display.

I am lost in the wilderness. Not “lost” in the desperate sense. My phone still shows 5G in case I need to drop a pin, and two bars if I want to make a call. (Does this thing have a compass, too?) And I know where I am: somewhere on a wooded ridgeline in the Cherokee National Forest near Shady Valley, Tennessee, not far from the North Carolina and Virginia borders.

Since Southbound debuted in 2013, our staff and contributors have logged thousands of miles, consumed millions of calories, and taken countless notes and photos to showcase the very best destinations around the region. Although every place we’ve covered is special, some left a particularly powerful impression. Here, we give you the best of the very best, our favorite spots in the South.