Savannah & the Georgia Low Country

"The best restaurant in the Southeast. In a 1938 Greyhound bus terminal."

The Grey is a nationally recognized restaurant set inside a beautifully restored 1938 Art Deco Greyhound bus terminal, complete with the original lunch counter. Chef Mashama Bailey has been named Best Chef Southeast by the James Beard Foundation. The food is a rigorous, deeply researched version of Low Country and Southern cooking — she-crab soup, Carolina Gold rice, seasonal vegetables from Georgia farms. This is a special occasion restaurant that merits the occasion.

"The sandwich shop the military community found before anyone else."

Creative sandwiches in Savannah's historic district. The menu changes and the combinations are committed — this is not a deli. The ingredients are sourced locally and the bread program takes it seriously. The kind of lunch place you'll return to ten times.

"Melbourne-style brunch culture in a 1883 brownstone."

Collins Quarter brought Australian café culture — the flat white, the ricotta toast, the all-day brunch philosophy — to Savannah's Leopold's neighborhood, and the city accepted it completely. The coffee program is serious. The brunch is reliable. The garden room in the back has the light that makes people want to eat here every weekend.

"The most beautiful cemetery in America. And John Muir slept here."

Bonaventure Cemetery sits on a bluff above the Wilmington River, draped in live oaks and Spanish moss so dense it creates cathedral-like canopy. The Victorian statuary is among the finest cemetery art collections in the South. Johnny Mercer is buried here. Conrad Aiken is buried here. The Little Gracie statue has flowers left on it by strangers daily for over a century. John Muir camped in the cemetery in 1867 on his 1,000-mile walk to the Gulf. This is one of the most atmospheric places in America.

"Wild horses, Carnegie ruins, and a ferry with limited daily spots."

Cumberland Island is Georgia's largest barrier island, accessible only by ferry from St. Marys. It has wild horses — descendants of horses brought by Spanish missionaries in the 1500s — that roam freely through the island's maritime forest. The ruins of Dungeness, the Carnegie family's 59-room mansion destroyed by fire in 1959, stand in the south end. John F. Kennedy Jr. was married here. The island has 18 miles of undeveloped beach. It is one of the most extraordinary places on the East Coast.

"Savannah's beach. Scrappy, salty, authentic."

Tybee Island is 18 miles east of Savannah — a small, unpretentious beach town that resists gentrification while welcoming everyone. The Tybee Island Lighthouse (1773, the oldest and tallest in Georgia) is at the north end. The South End beach is more developed; the North End is wilder. The vibe is locals and military over tourists. That's intentional.

"The Savannah College of Art and Design runs one of the country's better contemporary art museums."

SCAD operates one of the most ambitious contemporary art museums in the South — housed in a historic railroad complex with rotating international exhibitions, permanent collection highlights, and programming tied to the art school's international connections. Free. Downtown.

"30 acres in the heart of the city. Saturday farmers market. Always something."

The 30-acre Forsyth Park is the social heart of Savannah — the iconic fountain, the white gazebo, the Saturday farmers market, the paths under ancient live oaks. It's where Savannah goes on weekends. The farmers market (Saturdays, 9am–1pm) has some of the best local vendors in the Low Country.