Things to Do in Savannah

Midnight in the Garden walking tour

You'll navigate Bonaventure Cemetery's Gothic tombs by lantern light, the marble angel statues casting shadows that dance across Confederate graves. The salt breeze from nearby Wilmington River carries whispers of Savannah's scandalous past. Your guide might point out where songwriter Johnny Mercer rests beneath a simple bench, or the plot that inspired John Berendt's famous book. Night tours reveal how moonlight transforms the cemetery's live oaks into twisted sculptures. Spanish moss sways like funeral shrouds.

Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room lunch queue

The line forms at 10am for 11am seating, snaking past Victorian townhouses on Jones Street where you'll smell fried chicken before you see it. Inside the boarding house's original 1943 dining room, strangers pass heaping bowls of butter beans, okra, and peach cobbler around 10-seat tables. No menus, just whatever Mrs. Wilkes' granddaughter decided to cook that morning. The fried green tomatoes crunch like autumn leaves. Sweet tea arrives in mason jars that sweat condensation in the humid air.

River Street moonlit stroll

Cobblestones slick with river spray lead past cotton warehouses turned into pubs where live blues drifts through brick archways. You'll taste salt air mixing with praline samples from River Street Sweets. Container ships horn their way past the Waving Girl statue - Florence Martus who greeted every ship for 44 years. The old Factor's Walk overhead creates tunnels where gas lamps flicker against rough-hewn limestone. If you're lucky, you'll catch street musicians playing spoons on the stairs.

Tybee Island morning fishing

Twenty minutes east, the Atlantic smells of diesel and bait as shrimp boats return with their night's catch, gulls screaming overhead like rusty hinges. You'll watch locals cast from the pier at sunrise, their lines disappearing into copper-colored water while dolphins breach beyond the breakers. The lighthouse keeper's coffee shop serves she-crab soup that tastes like liquid sunrise. If you time it right, you'll see the tide expose sand dollars the size of your palm.

Savannah College of Art and Design galleries

SCAD students transformed abandoned buildings into exhibition spaces where you'll smell turpentine and hear the squeak of charcoal on paper. The Gutstein Gallery occupies a 1913 Jewish synagogue, its stained glass casting purple shadows over contemporary installations. On Tuesday evenings, students host free wine receptions where you might find yourself discussing someone's thesis on Gullah basket-weaving traditions while standing beneath a chandelier made from plastic Army men.

Historic District south of Liberty Street - where carriage houses rent for the cost of a decent hotel elsewhere

Starland District for artist lofts above vintage shops, walking distance to local bars that don't appear in guidebooks

Tybee Island for beach cottages where you'll fall asleep to waves instead of trolley tours

Victorian District's B&Bs where breakfast includes biscuits that could make a Baptist curse

Midtown mansions converted to Airbnbs, cheaper than downtown but you'll need wheels

River Street warehouses - tourist central but worth it once for falling asleep to foghorns