Savannah, GA - Travel Guide

My husband and I try and take a trip to somewhere new once a year. This year we picked Savannah, GA and I'm so glad we chose to escape here for a couple of days. I've never been to this part of the country before and it was everything I imagined this deep southern historic city to be. It was April so the humidity was pretty mild but the temperatures rose to 80-85 degrees. I could see how the temps might be a bit grueling in the summertime. Its a great trip if you're into history, yummy food, and beautiful scenery.
Here's a bit about what we did for our week away.

Where We Stayed

There are so many places to stay in Savannah. Lots of historic Inns and a lot of newer hotels, too. We stayed at the 17 Hundred 90 Inn on President's street right in downtown Savannah. It was such a cute spot with the charm of the city in our hotel rooms. Apparently this place is haunted...by a ghost named Anna who at one time jumped from Room 204. EEP! We had one of the guest houses so we weren't in the main building so I didn't get the chance to be spooked by Anna but it was kind of cool to have your Inn as one of the mentions at the old town tours. Our room had a beautiful hand painted ceiling and a jacuzzi tub, hello!

What We Saw

I don't even know where to start, there were so many things to see. If you stay downtown, there are a lot of things to just walk to. River street has a lot of shops and bars along the Savannah River, and its pretty but this spot was pretty touristy, its a good spot to go pick up one of the town tours.  We did a lot of walking around downtown where you would just run into beautiful spots. We also rented a car for the afternoon to get to specific things we looked up beforehand. 

Bonaventure Cemetery 

Since Nate and I are both book nerds, we HAD to see Bonaventure Cemetery which was featured on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Unfortunately, the "bird girl" statue made famous on the book cover had to be moved because she was getting vandalized. hmph. People don't respect anything anymore.  Anyways, Bonaventure is about 20 mins outside of the downtown so we had to rent a car for this visit but its so worth it. Here we got to see a bunch of old cemetery statues underneath the Spanish moss. It was so haunting and beautiful. Note: Even though this brings a lot of tourists, it is still a cemetery with real burials. 

 Wormsloe Historic Site

 This is a state park site 20 mins outside of Savannah (about 15 mins from Bonaventure Cemetery, we visited both sites on the same day while we had the car). It is the site of colonial plantation ruins of  Noble Jones who arrived in Georgia as one of the first settlers. These ruins are one of the oldest standing structures in Savannah. The site is covered with huge canopy style oak trees with Spanish moss...I mean, its so beautiful. There's about a 1 mile trail around the site that explains the story of Noble Jones and his estate. If you think the driveway with all the trees looks like the "run Forrest run" scene from Forrest Gump, its because it is!

 Mercer House

Again, book nerd alert. We had to find the Mercer House, now called the Mercer - Williams House Museum. This house was the scene of famed shooting death of Jim William's assistant, Danny Hansford, which is the story in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Also, its gorgeous. We didn't go inside but its easy to run into around town. 

Forsyth Park

This is a beautiful park right smack dab in the middle of the city. It has a beautiful famous fountain in the middle of the park and its just so shaded and beautiful. Its nice to just grab a cup of coffee and spend your morning in the park. AHHH, if I lived there I would be there everyday with a good book. 

First African Baptist Church

This is one of the oldest churches in the city and one of the oldest for an all black congregation. Slaves were permitted to go to church on Sundays since there was no working. It was part of the underground railroad and has markings on the ceilings that would let slaves know that it was a safe church for them. In front of the church, they had a mural of the Charleston 9 of the Emanuel AME Church shooting last summer. Which of course, I loved.  

Jones Street

Okay, so you can't walk around downtown Savannah without running into a beautiful street. But Jones street was especially beautiful with its cobble stone streets and picturesque homes. If you find yourself just wanting to wander around the historic district (basically the historic district is the part of downtown where you'll notice the street signs look old fashioned) try and find Jones street. You'll love it. Also, the gray house on the right of this picture below is for sale, anyone want to buy it for me? It's probably only a million or so...:)

Where We Ate

This is a section I have to mention but its so hard to condense. There are so many amazing restaurants around town in Savannah. We checked out a lot of places to just grab some food and a drink to relax. Places I need to mention was the cool looking bar at the 17 Hundred 90 Inn where we stayed (we got one complimentary drink each for staying, how cool??) and I ordered a mint julep...because I'm in the south! Bay Street was awesome for some bar hopping, We stopped at the Treylor Park to have a drink and this place was cool. Kind of super trendy but in a non obnoxious kind of way. We didn't eat here but the bar had a good vibe. We also checked out Churchill's Gastropub which was so funny because we didn't really want to try out a British style pub while we're in the South but we were walking around downtown and we saw this huge brick building with an adorable rooftop terrace and since it was such a beautiful night we searched around to where the terrace belonged to and we found Churchill's. It was cute, it didn't disappoint. For a splurge dinner we ate at The Pirate House which seems like an annoying, kitchy place at first but the food was amazing! Pricey, though, but hey, we were on vacation. 

The Collins Quarter

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you probably would notice that I kept posting pictures from a coffee shop/restaurant called The Collins Quarter right downtown. I LOVED this place. It was right down the street from our Inn and we just bumped into it one day walking around. I stopped and got an afternoon cold drip coffee and it was AMAZING so I told Nate we had to stop by the next day and try their food. Plus the ambiance is so relaxing, I just wanted to pick it up and take it home to Lancaster county with me. I love a good cup of coffee just as much as I love a coffee shop where I never want to leave. Also, is the coffee cup not the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Driftaway Cafe

We found this adorable little cafe, The Driftaway, that was located right outside of the Wormsloe Historic Site (so you would need to rent a car to get there). But it was low key, GREAT food, and good prices. Exactly what you would need to break up the day of driving around. 

Savannah Travel Tips

• We only had a couple of days and we didn't want to spend a lot of it driving (its about 10 hours from Lancaster, PA) so we flew from Washington Dulles to Savannah airport. From the airport it was really easy to grab a taxi and take it downtown which amounted to about $50 (with tip). If you stay at one of the chain hotels they would most likely offer a shuttle from the airport but since we stayed at a small Inn, that wasn't the case for us. 
• Downtown is in a grid shape so its really easy to walk around. And the blocks are super short so if you're staying downtown, you really don't need to worry about transportation to get around. 
• We did rent a car for the afternoon because we wanted to see Bonaventure Cemetery and Wormsloe Historic site and there is not a bus that goes out to those areas. Enterprise Rent a Center is right downtown and easy to walk to. It ended up only being $36 for the entire day. 
• Don't pick up the Spanish moss! I don't know if its just something to scare the kids but apparently it can be full of fire ants. And you'll see a lot of it just laying on the street.
• Bring bug spray with you for walking around in the evening. It wasn't too bad since its still early in the season but we did get bit up a bunch. I can imagine its worse over the summer. 

I hope you enjoyed hearing about Savannah as much as I enjoyed sharing our trip with you. If you ever have the chance to get down there, please go. It was such a nice area and a really relaxing trip. 

It's back to work tomorrow for me, but I'll still be daydreaming about Savannah. It went by too fast!

XOXO