Drive north on Money Road out of Greenwood, Mississippi, and the town gives way in a hurry to cotton and corn, an occasional house set back from the road.

Vivian Howard grew up in Lenoir County, North Carolina. She has authored two award-winning cookbooks, created and starred in TV shows Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life, and owns four restaurants—including her latest, Lenoir, in Charleston.

I am in a cage with my 12-year-old daughter, lowering, ever so slowly, into a tank full of sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. Ice-cold water meets my ankles and begins streaming inside my wetsuit boots.

The smell of rib-eye steaks sizzling on an indoor grill brings Rob McDaniel right back to his grandmother’s house in Oneonta, Alabama. His vivid memories of her cooking inspired him to become a chef, and now his downtown Birmingham restaurant, named Helen in her honor, is garnering national accolades for its Southern-inspired cuisine.

Thanks to its next-to-nonexistent level of light pollution, this remote park at the entrance of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is one of the best places in the country to stargaze.

Ocean Springs is a small town of abundant beauty—the natural kind found in the twisting branches of live oaks and the stunning sunsets at Front Beach, but also the type meticulously crafted on a pottery wheel or in a glass-blowing studio.

For decades, Florida’s A1A has been synonymous with beach vacations, a two-lane ticket to fun in the sun. Long stretches hug the Atlantic coast, offering stunning views of the ocean and the sandy shore.