Covering 400,000 acres in southeast Georgia, the Okefenokee Swamp is the largest blackwater swamp in the country. The vegetation leaches out into the water making it the color of strong tea or weak coffee and it’s really beautiful. The Okefenokee Swamp is a National Natural Landmark and much of it is a designated wilderness area. It’s home to 600 species of plants, 400 vertebrates, 60 reptiles and 200 birds. There are 120 miles of water trails in the park, and getting out on the water is essential. I chose a kayak for my adventure because it was a beautiful day and allowed me to really get out into the swamp and experience it. It was so quiet out there, and by quiet I mean the absence of human noise. The sounds of the birds and the wind through the grass and the frogs and insects was amazing. I’m sure the bugs and heat are terrible in the summer, but when I was there, it couldn’t have been better. This was one of the best days I’ve had in Georgia. I hope you enjoy my photos from the Okefenokee Swamp!
Tybee Island is a cute little beach community just 18 miles from Savannah. It is the easternmost point of Georgia and has wonderful a wonderful beach, a nice fishing pier and a cute downtown area. The highlight for me though, as I’m sure you will guess, is the Tybee Island Light Station. A lighthouse was first built on the site in 1736, and the bottom half of the current structure dates from 1773. The top half was replaced in 1867. It is the oldest and tallest lighthouse in Georgia.
Established in 1846 on an old plantation, Bonaventure Cemetery is the largest municipal cemetery in the city of Savannah. It gained notoriety from John Berendt’s novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and it’s film adaptation, and is one of the more visited sites in Savannah with several companies offering tours. It was also featured in John Muir’s Thousand Mile Walk, as he camped out in the cemetery for 6 days on his journey. I visited Bonaventure by myself and enjoyed wandering through this peaceful park. The Spanish moss gives it so much Southern atmosphere. Bonaventure is the final resting place of Savannah’s own Johnny Mercer and many other notable people from the city. It also has some magnificent statues. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Bonaventure Cemetery…
Columbus, Georgia was a city that surprised me. Much like Greenville, South Carolina and Cincinnati, Ohio, I came in with limited expectations and found myself falling more in love with it around every turn. The city has obvious industrial roots, but they have re-purposed many of the old industrial buildings and turned the once gritty downtown into a modern, walkable, very enjoyable town. Columbus is the third largest city in the state with a population of just under 200,000, and their economy relies heavily on nearby Fort Benning. It is also the home of Aflac Insurance and Columbus State University. Beyond these major employers though, Columbus is making major strides in attracting tourism, and from my perspective they are well on their way.
And so it was that I found myself in their wonderful Visitor’s Center trying to find a way to spend my day. It was a beautiful Georgia fall day with clear skies and a very agreeable temperature, and I wanted to spend the day outside taking photos of the city. My question for the people working at the Visitor’s Center was simple: what are the most iconic locations in Columbus? What are the places that someone born and raised there would recognize instantly, no matter how long they had been gone for? This is a seemingly simple question, but probably not one they receive every day. The three of us discussed it for some time, and put together a fairly extensive list. They had incredible resources ton hand to work with from a driving tour of the lovely Midtown neighborhood to an African American History Walking Tour pamphlet of downtown. After about a half-hour of discussing the most recognizable places in town, I set off to take the photos you’ll find below…
The Doll’s Head Trail in Atlanta is definitely different. While this post would probably have been better around Halloween, I visited the day after Thanksgiving when many things around the city were closed. The trail got its start when a local resident was out picking up trash in Constitution Lakes Park, where the trail is located, and ended up finding a lot of broken toys. He started creating this macabre outdoor art exhibit some time later, and its popularity has grown since then. It was definitely something different to see in Atlanta, and worth a look if you are looking for something free, close and outdoors. I wouldn’t visit on a full moon if I were you though.
When I asked my very well-traveled group of friends for recommendations on where to go in Georgia, probably 90% of them came back pointing me to the far north of the state. I admit I really had no idea how spectacular North Georgia is. Nestled in the southernmost region of the Appalachian Mountains, North Georgia is full of beautiful scenery, quaint towns and villages and warm, welcoming people. If North Georgia isn’t yet on your must-see list, it sure should be. I hope you enjoy these wonderful photos from my journey through the mountain towns of North Georgia.
Helen, Georgia is a fascinating and beautiful place and a real tribute to creativity in tourism initiatives. With a population of around 500, Helen is the third most visited city in all of Georgia. Helen was a dying lumber town in January of 1969 when three local businessmen met to discuss the future of their town. They wondered how they could attract tourism to the area, and thought maybe if they spruced up Main Street a bit, they might entice people to stop for a night or a meal on their way to or from the mountains. One of these men contacted John Kollock, an artist whose family had roots in the region. They asked John if he could make a few sketches and suggest a good direction for the town. John looked at the town, nestled in a beautiful mountain valley, and it reminded him of Bavarian towns he had seen in Germany during his time in the service. His sketches were well received and by that fall, the town had a new facade. Tourists started to come, and have kept coming. Today, over three million people visit Helen every year, so I’d say tourism is working for them. There is plenty of normal tourist trap hullabaloo around town, but some really beautiful buildings as well. Heck, even the Huddle House looks like it fell out of a Fairy Tale. You can get a pretty decent German meal, and definitely a Liter of good German beer. I really loved seeing this place sprucing up for Christmas and my camera loved it as well. I thought I was going to make this a quick stop and ended up there for hours. Helen is a charming little town, well worth a detour. I’m glad I visited. I hope you enjoy these photos from Helen!
Hello everyone! Thanksgiving Week is upon us here in the United States, and turkeys are being rounded up by the thousands. Pecan and pumpkin pies are going in the oven and families are preparing for long drives to relatives houses around the country. It is our busiest travel weekend of the year, so please be safe on the roads out there. It’s also a distinctly American holiday, which I’ve always been fascinated by. As I mentioned at Easter, many Americans don’t give off a lot of hints as to their ethnic background until you visit them at Christmas or Easter and then you’ll see old family recipes they don’t even consider as anything but “what we’ve always eaten”. Of course millions of Americans don’t celebrate these Christian holidays at all, celebrating their own religion’s holidays instead. This is am amazing time to visit these Americans’ homes and learn their traditions. It’s really only the 4th of July and Thanksgiving we celebrate all together with some form of consensus on the menu. So Happy Thanksgiving America. Eat lots and get extra exercise this week to make up for it. Watch some football and throw the ball with your kids. Enjoy your family and friends and ask them how they are and if they’re happy and healthy, laugh out loud and hug often while you are together. Leave the politics and B.S. off the menu for a day and just enjoy each other and our special American day.
I’ve spent lots of Thanksgivings on the road, so I’m ready for it. Two that were particularly memorable had me fixing a traditional American Thanksgiving meal for tour groups of 13 people. One was around a campfire in Key Largo in Florida and the other was in a ski lodge in Stowe, Vermont. In the first instance my group was out snorkeling all day and in the second they were skiing. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope it’s where you want to be.
I will be here in Georgia! I have made my way into the Peach State and had a fabulous first week in Georgia’s Far North. Most people probably don’t associate mountains and Georgia, but they certainly go together well. My week has been spent out in the woods, enjoying cool but sunny weather in Georgia’s State Parks and natural areas. It’s been an amazing week exploring this region and has really whet my appetite for the rest of my stay here.
Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. So far, over 400 miles of cave have been explored and mapped and nobody can really say how much further the cave goes. It is generally a dry cave, so it’s not known for beautiful and elaborate formations (with some notable exceptions), but it’s enormous rooms and passageways make it a magical place to visit. It is a National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and part of the International Biosphere Reserve.
In addition to the vast underground cave system, the park also protects 52,000 acres of beautiful Kentucky forest surrounding the Green River. Miles and miles of trails crisscross the park providing ample opportunities for exploration above ground as well…
Hillcrest Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky takes Halloween seriously. Very seriously. They have become known around town as the place to go to see Halloween decorations. I was really glad to get this tip and be able to go and photograph their wonderful displays. If you are travelling through Louisville between now and the end of the month, or you ever find yourself there in October, definitely head over to Hillcrest for a spooktacular time! Enjoy these photos from my visit!
Despite its name, Old Louisville began as a suburb of Louisville sometime around 1870, nearly a century after the city’s founding. Old Louisville covers a 48 block area with one of the largest concentrations of Victorian architecture in the country. Unique to this time period and style, most of the houses in the neighborhood are brick or stone which has kept them in pretty good shape over the years. I loved wandering the neighborhood there and taking these photos. You will see some are of entire houses, while others are of specific details which caught my eye and others still are of neighborhood streets, parks and fountains. It’s a lovely place for a stroll and well worth a visit if you are ever in Louisville.
Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery was dedicated in 1848 and is the final resting place for over 120,000 people. During the Victorian Era and in a time before city parks were as prevalent as they are today, “garden cemeteries” were often designed and promoted for recreational activities. People would stroll down the winding lanes and maybe have a picnic by the lake. I like this idea and have always seen beautiful cemeteries as a nice place to walk and think and ponder life and death, a place to consider and draw from generations of people who came before us. Funerary art and statues are remarkable and often overlooked as a true art form. I spent several hours in Cave Hill over two visits, neither under the best of conditions for photography, but it was beautiful nonetheless. You will see photos of some of the famous people buried there like Colonel Harland Sanders, Muhammad Ali and Louisville founder George Rogers Clark. There are also lesser known people like Harry L. Collins, who was the official magician of Frito-Lay and Nicola Marschall who designed the official flag and uniforms of the Confederacy. Cave Hill is also a National Cemetery with graves for both Union and Confederate war veterans. It is a beautiful place to visit and was high on my list of sites I wanted to see in Louisville. I hope you enjoy my photos from Cave Hill.
