ALABAMA | GEORGIA | LOUISIANA | MISSISSIPPI | TENNESSEE

Alabama
Alabama’s Coast
During Mardi Gras season in Mobile, the streets of downtown are filled with the sights and sounds of live marching bands and brilliantly coloured floats. All year long the port city of Mobile features the taste of the coast with fresh delicious seafood and a diverse array of bars, nightclubs and live music venues.
All along Alabama’s coast fresh seafood and celebrations abound. Gulf Shores hosts the National Shrimp Festival in October and Bayou La Batre, the small coastal fishing village made famous by the movie Forrest Gump and the fictionalised Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., hosts the annual Blessing of the Fleet each May.

Birmingham
In Birmingham the annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival and City Stages music event are just two reasons to visit Alabama’s largest city with its jazz history. Dance to great live music and enjoy fantastic dining at Five Points South, the city's top entertainment district. Restaurants include Highlands Bar and Grill, named among the top ten in all of America.

Huntsville
Huntsville’s Down Home Blues Festival, Panoply Arts Festival, Black Arts Festival and Big Spring Jam are just some of the festivals in the north Alabama city packed with museums and cultural opportunities. Experience a variety of dining options from fine dining to down-home cuisine in more than 500 restaurants. Nightlife abounds in the downtown district and several other locations throughout Huntsville and Madison.

Georgia
Sapelo Island
African slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean arrived at a landscape that was remarkably similar to the one they left – swampy coastlines, tropical vegetation and hot, humid summers. After Emancipation, freed slaves lived on Georgia’s coastal islands in relative isolation and retained many of their homeland traditions. The interchangeable terms “Gullah” and “Geechee” describe both a language and a culture that persist today. On Sapelo Island, the rolling lilt of Gullah fills the air. The Geechee Institute in nearby Savannah holds festivals and lectures to promote cultural preservation and education.

Covington & Madison
Along Georgia’s Antebellum Trail, scenic highways wind past vistas from the bygone era of the Old South. Images of Southern Belles sweeping along porches easily come to mind at a glimpse of antebellum mansions. Follow the Civil War trail that General Sherman blazed on his famous March to the Sea. This timeless authenticity and the warmth of small town America were captured on screen in Fried Green Tomatoes, My Cousin Vinny and The Big Chill.

Savannah
The book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil did for Savannah what Gone With The Wind did for Atlanta: It made the world sit up and take notice of this Southern belle city with many charms. Thanks to a massive restoration effort that saved the Greek Revival and Regency-style homes from demolition, more than 800 buildings have been restored to their original glory and tree-shaded squares decorate the city in a patchwork of green, while lively restaurant, bar and music scenes keep Savannah visitors dancing into the night.

Louisiana
New Orleans
New Orleans defies traditional descriptions. The mélange of cultures that arrived and mixed in America’s largest port city created a unique mosaic of astounding neighbourhoods. The well-preserved and world-famous French Quarter is but the starting point in this city of discoveries. Savour the world-famous Creole cuisine and take a local cooking class. Gorgeous mansions uptown, infectious indigenous music in the streets, paddlewheel steamboat cruises on the Mississippi River, and interesting people-watching will stimulate your senses.

Cajun Country
Considered one of America’s best-preserved cultural areas, Southwest Louisiana is loaded with authentic, zestful culture. A drive through the wetlands below Lake Charles, Lafayette, and Houma-Thibodaux allows the visitor to interact with local fishermen, oilfield workers, and unique families. Cajun Country is the land of moss-laden swamps and rich prairies that provides a bountiful harvest for the pungent palate of Cajun cooking. Small wonder that Tabasco hot sauce is made here!

Sportsman’s Paradise & Crossroads
Where the toe-tappin’ of the South meets the red soil of the North, northern Louisiana is a crossroads of outdoors adventure, military history, music, and festivals. The French, Spanish, English, and Free Men of Colour settlers all co-existed here producing a Southern, yet distinctly Louisianan culture. In north Louisiana, it stands to reason you eat what you catch. With countless lakes, wonderful state parks and lodging, and Toledo Bend lake country, there is endless opportunity to relax and enjoy the environment. From the city life of Monroe, Shreveport-Bossier, and Alexandria to the historic charm of Natchitoches, this land of rolling hills and old towns is ripe for surprising discoveries.

Mississippi
Oxford & Corinth
Oxford houses the Center for the Study of Southern culture, a treasure trove of music, folklore and literature. Aside from the University of Mississippi, forever known as Ole Miss, Oxford is best known for the art and literature produced here. Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner resided here and Rowan Oak, his antebellum mansion, remains intact and is open for tours. Faulkner once said the past isn’t past. At Corinth, site of one of the greatest sieges in the Western hemisphere, the past feels as present as your own heartbeat as you walk the carefully preserved earthworks and tour the Civil War Interpretive Centre.

Canton
Long known as the City of Lights, Canton has now become the City of Lights, Camera, Action! as word spreads among such film greats as the Coen Brothers and Joel Schumacher about the wealth of scenic and cultural resources to be found along these historic streets. A Time to Kill was filmed entirely on location in Canton, Mississippi. Scenes from this emotionally charged film, based on the novel by Mississippian, John Grisham, are frozen in time in the Canton Film Museums. O Brother, Where Art Thou, My Dog Skip, and many other films, documentaries and commercials have been filmed on location in Canton.

Mississippi Gulf Coast
An hour or so drive from New Orleans is the 26 miles of sun-drenched, white sandy beaches of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This coastline has always been a traditional getaway in the South, but in recent years has become home to casinos and resorts usually found in Las Vegas complete with fantastic entertainment and cuisine second to none. Quaint seaside towns like Ocean Springs, Pascagoula, Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian offer a sultry atmosphere with Spanish moss-draped oaks. The Mississippi Gulf Coast was struck by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and despite massive storm damage, the area has re-built and remains the “playground of the South.”

Tennessee
Lynchburg
Drive the back roads of Tennessee to Lynchburg and stop awhile at the Jack Daniel’s distillery for a fascinating and entertaining tour of the oldest registered distillery in the US. Lynchburg is a classic Southern town, laid out around a red-brick courthouse, with a number of old-fashioned stores and restaurants. The best-known eatery in town is Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House, which serves sumptuous Southern lunches at a single 1pm sitting every day except Sunday.

Jonesborough
Cradled in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills, Jonesborough, founded in 1779, is Tennessee’s oldest town. After the Revolution, it was briefly the capital of the would-be-state of Franklin. For the first weekend of October,
its beautifully preserved homes, churches and public buildings are the backdrop for the National Storytelling Festival. Raconteurs from the Smokies and Appalachians, the American West, Europe, Canada and Africa delight the thousands who flock to this corner of Tennessee.

Franklin
The quaint and charming town of Franklin bills itself as “20 miles south and 150 years from Nashville.” The scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, Franklin has a delightful town square and a number of antebellum mansions open to the public. The best-selling novel, Widow of the South, is set at the Carnton Plantation in Franklin and beautifully captures the romance and intrigue of the South during the Civil War.

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