Georgia on my mind: the glorious Deep South

Located in the south east of the US, just above Florida, Georgia is state of many faces. Culturally diverse cities, marshland, mountains, dense woodland and a varied coastline make it a beautiful state to visit with something a little different to the usual American holiday destinations of New York, Boston and California.

Late summer into autumn is an ideal time to come as well, with less chance of encountering the heavy rain and possible tornados that can arrive between March and May. Though even during that period, tornadoes are rare and the rain tends to be an all-or-nothing affair where the skies open for a quick torrential downpour and then sunny skies return ten minutes later – which can give respite from the sometimes high temperatures and humidity.

Atlanta

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Atlanta, the capital city, has everything you'd expect from a modern US metropolis, but isn't intimidating in scale. The city is well served by public transport in the centre, but electric scooters and rental bikes festoon every street corner. Unlockable with easy-to-use apps, you can pick them up and drop them off wherever you choose for a reasonable price making exploration easy.

A liberal city within the generally conservative state, Atlanta has a thriving LGBT+ scene with rainbow street crossings, busy bars and gay-friendly restaurants all around the central Piedmont Avenue area.

The Fourth Ward neighbourhood, the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr and home to his father's church, is a fascinating area which celebrates its rich legacy of African American music, arts and culture and its contribution to the Civil Rights movement.

Hotels such as the Hilton and Four Seasons in downtown Atlanta offer predictably luxurious accommodation, but for those looking for something a bit more memorable there is the boutique four-star Hotel Claremont, a couple of miles north of downtown.

Renovated a year ago, the hotel features rooms with bright floral carpets, Seventies artwork on the walls and large, comfy beds. Another reason to visit the Claremont is the trendy rooftop bar where locals and guests mingle over cocktails and beers.

For the more adventurous there is also the Claremont Lounge in the basement of the hotel. Started in 1965, the lounge is Atlanta's oldest strip joint. It has also welcomed a wealth of locals, celebrities and out-of-towners, who come to visit the bustling bar where an equal mix of men and women dance and drink the night away rather than simply to ogle the performers.

This is a bar which is less about toned bodies and more about unusual characters such as a 60-year-old entertainer who crushes beer cans with her bosom, making the venue more of a fun, late-night location rather than a seedy one.

A stone’s-throw from the Claremont Hotel is Ponce City Market. One of the biggest brick structures in the South, this industrial building was formerly a Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse where you could mail order everything from a towel to a flat-pack house.

The Ponce City Market is now filled with small eateries with options ranging from edible cookie dough to homemade pasta to Indian street food.

While none of these options are going to win Michelin stars, all of them produce excellent food. This makes it a great location if you're a bit indecisive about what cuisine you fancy.

Ponce City Market also has an over-21s roof terrace, which features an 18-hole mini-golf course, fairground games and even more food options.

Daytime attractions in the centre of town cover experiences both serious and frivolous. A visit to news network CNN offers insight into how news and current affairs are produced.

The Center for Civil and Human Rights has interactive displays and immersive, theatrical exhibits which allow visitors to understand the country-wide struggle for equality. In a state that was bitterly divided in the Fifties and Sixties over the issue of race, the Center puts forward a strong case for moving forward without shying away from the facts of a brutal past.

People from Atlanta are deeply proud of Coca-Cola coming from their city. Indeed, finding a Pepsi is nigh on impossible. Our city guide from the excellent Atlanta Experience Tour, which operates electric car and Segway city tours, proudly told us "We don't use the 'P' word around here". The Coke Museum however, is probably one for true fans of the sugary drink more than the vaguely curious. Just to enter the museum you must sit through an unskippable talk and six minute film that is more akin to propaganda than entertainment.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of things to discover once you are released from the auditorium. The process of making Coke as well as a hint of information about their secret recipe are well covered as is the iconic design of the Coca-Cola bottle. But the well-stocked store at the end of the tour is perhaps the best part of the museum. It has soda fountains delivering every type of fizzy drink that Coke sells across the world, from the fruity to the plain weird.

The Georgia Aquarium is a must-see attraction. With more than 10 million gallons of water and displays that feature water tunnels and giant walls of glass where you can take your time to view stingrays, sea turtles and whale sharks mingling together, a visit to the aquarium will easily take up a full day.

Freshwater and tropical fish are in abundance across the many themed sections, one of which features a waterfall for salmon to climb. Some aspects of the aquarium, such as the relatively small tanks that house the dolphins, may rightly bother some visitors, but the Aquarium makes great efforts to ensure visitors truly understand the importance of sea creatures to life on Earth and our impact on them.

Savannah

Four-hours' drive south east of Atlanta is Savannah – a coastal city that is the embodiment of the South and southern hospitality. For those outside of Georgia, Savannah is probably most famous for being the location of the bench scene in Forrest Gump.

The city is small enough to walk around, although there is a free bus that rolls through the centre of town for those who would rather take it a little easier. It's a beautiful and leafy city which features a green square every couple of blocks where you can rest and relax, generally learning a little about the past of the South along the way, as most of the squares have statues and plaques dedicated to prominent characters from history.

The City Market area is a quaint location where you can get your fill of ice cream, candy, pizza and cocktails. It's also the location of The American Prohibition Museum, a small, but fascinating place where you can inspect moonshine stills and read about flamboyant characters from the age of politicised prohibition and rampant gangsterism. With those days long gone, the City Market area is also one of the central hubs for bars, clubs and restaurants.

The DoubleTree Hotel, part of the Hilton family establishments, is a luxurious location to stay, with an outside pool, valet parking and large rooms for when you need a little respite from the heat outside.

The true Southern eating experience available at Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House is worth the four-hour drive from Atlanta alone. Set on a street with brick brownstone buildings overlooked by giant trees, the restaurant has been in the Wilkes family since 1943.

It is only open for a couple of hours at lunchtime each day and it doesn't take reservations, so queuing outside is the only option to get a seat. Once inside, eating is a communal experience as each table seats 10, so unless you're with a large group you'll need to prepare yourself to get chatting to fellow diners.

The food comes as "family style" meaning the table is laden with a multitude of dishes such as collard greens, fried chicken, creamed corn, biscuits and gravy. It's up to each diner to take what they want and pass it on.

The food at Mrs. Wilkes is not only outstanding, it's also the best place to experience what a proper Southern home cooked meal should taste like. And the welcoming waiters are happy to refill any dishes that run out, if you're in a particularly ravenous group.

Another food destination of note in Savannah is East End Provision with modern takes on classic American dishes and a bespoke cocktail menu to complement a location that is rich with stories from prohibition days.

For dessert, Leopold's Ice Cream Shop is a great place to visit. For almost a century the family-owned Leopold's has been serving ice cream to the people of Savannah and the queues testify to its quality. Like visiting the diner from Back To The Future it feels like a visit to an authentic part of the past that has somehow continued to thrive.

If you're looking for a little more history about America’s inglorious slave-owning past, The Owens Thomas House, set in the middle of Savannah, as well as the Hofwyl-Broadfield Rice Plantation in Brunswick, a short drive away, give a good historical overview of the way both the slaves and their owners lived. At times a touch too lenient on the owners in the storytelling, both locations tell the history of slavery from a city and plantation perspective.

Tybee beach, an hours drive from Savannah is part of the wider commuter belt for the city, but it's also a relaxed beach town with long sandy shores and relaxed bars and diners.

Because of the prevalence of marshes around Georgia and the wash-off from them, you don't get the crystal clear waters of Florida, but there is an abundance of sea life for keen fishers, and because Georgia isn't currently as popular a tourist destination, the beaches – while popular – don't have the stifling crowds of Florida.

To get the full seaside experience, book yourself on Captain Derek's Dolphin Tour. For $15 you can take to the sea in search of the friendly mammals.

The highlight of our tour came towards the end of the 90-minute trip, when our boat sped towards port with dolphins chasing close behind, leaping in our wake.

Lunch at the Original Crab Shack in Chimney Creek gives the perfect chance to eat any of the marine life you haven't yet managed to see. Giant platters of crab, shrimp, mussels, and oysters are messily shared between diners in the predominantly outdoor restaurant overlooking the ocean.

The seafood is outstanding and the relaxed, family-friendly environment is well suited to those who want a place to have a frozen cocktail after a long day on the beach.

Jekyll Island

Jekyll Island offers a different type of seaside experience to Tybee. As a protected national park, Jekyll Island was formerly the holiday destination of the rich and famous prior to the Second World War. Hardship after the war saw the popularity of the location wane and by the Eighties, its reputation had sunk significantly. However, a surge in investment has turned things round dramatically in the past few years.

The Westin hotel is a luxurious, modern hotel with stunning balcony sea views, an in-house restaurant and bistro and a broad swimming pool. Because of the island's National Park status, new structures can only be built on the footprint of previous buildings and height restrictions apply meaning the island will never become overly developed.

Bike rides along the wide, sandy beaches offer an opportunity to explore the uncluttered coastline and at night, when the sky is clear, the lack of pollution offers a glorious view of the stars above. The dense woodland all over the island is also worth exploring, and there are two golf courses to visit.

The island is most famous for its sea turtles. From May to August thousands of turtles arrive on the shores to lay their eggs. Wooden walkways protect the sand dunes where the diapsids nest and locals regularly patrol the beaches looking for any mothers heading into the dunes to lay eggs or to asist newly hatched baby turtles heading for the ocean.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center is a rehabilitation facility which helps turtles who have been hurt in the wild and, where possible, releases them back into their natural environment. There are plenty of displays to help visitors both young and old to understand how turtles live and the impact that we have on their habitat. This isn't an attraction where turtles are put on display in tanks, but a place where you can see how rehabilitation actually takes place. This includes glimpses of recovering turtles in their pools and windows that let you observe the vets giving check-ups or shots in the examination room.

Georgia is a varied and interesting state that offers a snapshot of the South that is often a world away from what you might expect from a visit to the US. Steeped in history from the Civil War, slavery and the Civil Rights movement, it is also not solely defined by the past.

The bright lights of Atlanta contrast well with the old-world feel of Savannah, while Jekyll Island stands apart from both. Modern restaurants and hotels have found the right balance here to support the region’s National Park status. The fact these contrasting locations are all within relatively short driving distances make Georgia, which can be reached by direct flights from the UK, a state well worth visiting for anyone who is looking for a large and diverse slice of the glorious Deep South.

For more information visit exploregeorgia.org

Bon Voyage offer a six-night holiday from £1,495 per person including direct return flights with Virgin Atlantic into Atlanta from London Heathrow, seven days car hire, and six nights accommodation (two nights at Hotel Clermont in Atlanta, two nights at the DoubleTree Savannah Historic District Hotel, two nights at The Westin Jekyll Island, all on a room-only board basis). Price based on two people sharing and travel in October 2019. To book, visit www.bon-voyage.co.uk, call 0800 316 0194 or email sales@bon-voyage.co.uk.