Savannah was designed to be beautiful. General James Oglethorpe laid out the city in 1733 on a grid of wards, each centered on a public square shaded by live oaks draped in Spanish moss, surrounded by trust lots for public buildings and tything lots for homes. The plan — 22 squares still intact today — produced the most coherent and walkable historic urban landscape in America, a city that feels like it was designed for people to live in rather than pass through. The squares are the social infrastructure of Savannah life: people walk dogs, eat lunch, read books, and sit in the dappled light of the moss-filtered afternoon sun in spaces that have been doing exactly this since before the Revolution.
Savannah draws over 14 million visitors annually and generates approximately $3.4 billion in tourism spending. The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) — which has restored over 70 historic buildings for use as studios, galleries, and classrooms — has infused the city with a creative energy and dining culture far beyond what its population of 150,000 would otherwise support. The Grey, Chef Mashama Bailey's restaurant inside a restored 1938 Art Deco Greyhound bus terminal, won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2022 — one of the most important restaurant awards in America — placing Savannah definitively on the national culinary map.
The Historic District, Forsyth Park & Bonaventure Cemetery
Walking Savannah's historic district is the primary activity — and it is sufficient on its own to fill two full days. The squares each have their own character: Chippewa Square (where the Forrest Gump bench scenes were filmed), Madison Square with its memorial to Sergeant Jasper, Monterey Square's Mercer Williams House (of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fame), and Forsyth Park's grand 1858 cast-iron fountain at the center of the largest and most beautiful of the squares. The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist's Gothic spires are the city's most dramatic architecture. The Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters is the most historically honest and essential house museum visit.
Bonaventure Cemetery — four miles east of downtown along the Wilmington River — is one of the most extraordinarily beautiful cemeteries in America, with centuries-old live oaks creating a cathedral canopy over Victorian and antebellum graves. It became nationally known from John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994) and has been drawing literary pilgrims since. The cemetery is free, open daily, and worth a full morning. Tybee Island — 18 miles east on US-80 — offers Atlantic beach access with a casual, unfussy character that suits the Savannah pace perfectly.
"Mashama Bailey's menu at The Grey weaves African influences through Southern traditions in a 1938 Art Deco bus terminal — dishes like foie gras and grits or smoked collards with wild sorghum jus that tell the full, complicated story of what Southern food actually is."
Lowcountry Soul, Mrs. Wilkes's Table & Savannah's New Guard
Savannah's food identity is the Georgia Lowcountry — shrimp and grits, fried chicken, she-crab soup, boiled peanuts, and the African and African-American cooking traditions that built the Southern table. Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room has been serving this food in a communal boarding house format since 1943, passing dishes family-style around tables shared with strangers. The Grey has taken those same roots and elevated them into one of the most celebrated restaurants in the country. Between those two poles — the 1943 boarding house and the James Beard Outstanding Restaurant — lies the full range of Savannah's table.
A James Beard America's Classics Award winner — fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, sweet potato soufflé, and a dozen other Southern dishes passed family-style around communal tables with strangers who become lunch companions. No reservations, cash only, and a line that starts forming before the 11am opening. Essential.
$ · BudgetChef Mashama Bailey's James Beard Award-winning restaurant in a restored 1938 Art Deco Greyhound bus terminal — Southern flavors woven through African traditions, producing plates like foie gras and grits or smoked collards with wild sorghum jus. The most celebrated restaurant in Savannah and one of the most important in the American South. Book months ahead for dinner.
$$$$ · LuxurySet in a restored Victorian home, Common Thread's hyper-seasonal menu changes frequently and celebrates Georgia's local farms and fisheries in ways that have earned James Beard semifinalist recognition. The setting is as memorable as the dishes — intimate, unhurried, and entirely invested in the ingredients available that week.
$$$ · UpscaleLocated in the stylish Hotel Bardo, Saint Bibiana channels coastal Italian energy through a Southern lens — handmade pasta, seafood paccheri with local shrimp and crab, cacio e pepe with Georgia black pepper. Weekend brunch has become the hottest reservation in Savannah, with prosecco and breakfast pasta carbonara in an emerald velvet and marble room.
$$$ · UpscaleHistoric Inns, the Mansion on Forsyth Park & Hotel Bardo
Savannah's lodging is defined by its historic inns and antebellum bed-and-breakfasts — the most atmospheric hotel experience in the city involves sleeping in a 19th-century building in the historic district. The Mansion on Forsyth Park (a grand 19th-century property directly on Savannah's most beautiful square) runs $250–$500/night. The Perry Lane Hotel, the Bohemian Hotel on the riverfront, and the newly opened Hotel Bardo each offer boutique character at $200–$380/night. For the most genuine historic district experience, the dozens of inn and B&B options in the Victorian row houses run $150–$300/night — within walking distance of every restaurant and square worth seeing.
- The Grey takes reservations for Tuesday through Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch — book as far ahead as possible. Tables for the Sunday brunch are particularly coveted. The bar accepts walk-ins on a space-available basis.
- Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room is cash only, no reservations, and serves lunch only (11am–2pm). Arrive 15–20 minutes before opening to avoid a long wait. The communal seating with strangers is not optional — it's the experience.
- Savannah's go-cup culture is legal — open containers of alcohol are permitted on the streets of the historic district. River Street bars will hand you a plastic cup when you're ready to continue walking.
- Bonaventure Cemetery is free and open 8am–5pm daily. A cemetery map from the visitor center identifies the graves of notable Savannahians, including the Bird Girl statue location made famous on the Midnight in the Garden cover.
- St. Patrick's Day in Savannah is the second-largest celebration in the country after New York — the city's Irish heritage runs deep. The weekend draws massive crowds; book accommodation months ahead if visiting in mid-March.
- Tybee Island is 30 minutes east — a casual Atlantic beach town with a lighthouse, good seafood, and a pace that matches Savannah's perfectly. It makes an excellent half-day addition to any Savannah trip.
- SCAD Museum of Art is free on Sundays and one of the finest art museums in the Southeast — the collection of contemporary works and the beautifully restored Romanesque Revival building are both exceptional.
Savannah: The City That Time Made Beautiful
Savannah's beauty is not accidental — it was designed in 1733 and has been maintained, restored, and defended against development ever since. The 22 squares, the live oaks, the Spanish moss, the antebellum facades, and the food culture that grew from the African and African-American traditions that built the Southern table are all still here, all still working, all still available to anyone willing to walk slowly through a city that has always understood the value of slowing down. The Grey is there when you want the most celebrated version of this story. Mrs. Wilkes is there when you want the most honest one. Savannah, generously, offers both.
Walk slowly. Eat well. Stay longer. 🌿