Charleston and Savannah: the Lowcountry and Jekyll Island

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Charleston

   Charleston International Airport to your hotel in the historic district

   • Environ 30 min de route
   • Welcome dinner
   • Nuit : Charleston
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into Charleston International Airport (CHS), about 20 km from the historic district, and land by about 3 pm. Our driver meets you in arrivals and takes you to a central hotel in the old city, your base for three nights. Charleston was founded in 1670 and moved to this peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers in 1680, and its centre is still small enough to cross on foot in half an hour. At about 5 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing, then an easy first walk as the heat goes out of the day: along the Waterfront Park promenade to the Pineapple Fountain, past the pastel houses of Rainbow Row on East Bay Street and out to the seawall of the Battery, where the harbour opens towards Fort Sumter. The walk ends at the welcome dinner, a sit-down Lowcountry meal of the kind you will eat all week: shrimp and grits, she-crab soup and rice dishes that go back to the Gullah Geechee cooks of the Sea Islands.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at Charleston International Airport (CHS)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Evening walk: Waterfront Park, Rainbow Row and the Battery
   • Welcome dinner

   Temps libre : Free until the 5 pm briefing

   Activité : Land by about 3 pm to make the briefing; later arrivals are met and join the group at dinner.

2. Jour 2 : The people who built Charleston

   A day on foot in Charleston's historic district

   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Charleston
   Détail du jour 2

   This morning is about the people who built Charleston. We start at 9 am, before the heat, with a local guide who specialises in the city's Black history, walking from the Four Corners of Law past St Michael's Church and the iron gates, brick walls and walled gardens of the old houses, much of it the work of enslaved and free Black blacksmiths, carpenters and bricklayers. On Chalmers Street we visit the Old Slave Mart Museum, in a building where people were auctioned in the years before the Civil War. Lunch is a sit-down meal nearby. In the afternoon we walk to the International African American Museum, opened in 2023 on the site of Gadsden's Wharf, where many thousands of captive Africans were landed; take your time with the galleries and the memorial garden by the water. The late afternoon and evening are yours: the sweetgrass basket makers at the City Market, the shops of King Street, or a rooftop bar at sunset.

   Compris

   • Charleston Black history walk with a local guide
   • Old Slave Mart Museum
   • Sit-down lunch in the historic district
   • International African American Museum

   Option plus facile : Ride to the museum in our van instead of walking, or go back to the hotel after lunch.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon and evening free

   Activité : About 6 km on foot across the day, on flat pavements and some uneven brick.

   

3. Jour 3 : McLeod Plantation and Fort Sumter

   Charleston to McLeod Plantation on James Island, then the boat to Fort Sumter

   • Environ 30 min de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Charleston
   Détail du jour 3

   We drive about fifteen minutes across the Ashley River to McLeod Plantation Historic Site on James Island, arriving at opening. It is a plantation told from the other side: the visit, led by the site's own interpreters, starts not at the big house but at the row of small wooden cabins built for the enslaved people who grew Sea Island cotton here, cabins their descendants went on living in long after emancipation. You hear about the Gullah Geechee families of the island, the Freedmen's Bureau office that worked from the house after the war, and how the site chose to tell the story. Back downtown, lunch is at a sit-down restaurant near the harbour. In the afternoon we take the boat from Liberty Square to Fort Sumter, about half an hour each way across the harbour, often with dolphins alongside. The first shots of the Civil War were fired here in April 1861; rangers are on the fort to answer questions. The evening is free.

   Compris

   • McLeod Plantation Historic Site with the site's interpreters
   • Sit-down lunch near the harbour
   • Boat from Liberty Square to Fort Sumter and back, with time on the fort

   Option plus facile : Skip Fort Sumter and spend the afternoon at the hotel or in the Charleston Museum.

   Option plus active : On your free evening, walk the pedestrian path of the Ravenel Bridge over the Cooper River for the view back to the city.

   Temps libre : Evening free

   Activité : About 2 km on foot at McLeod and on the fort, mostly on sand, grass and level paths.

4. Jour 4 : Angel Oak, Beaufort and the Penn Center

   Charleston to the Angel Oak, Beaufort and St Helena Island, then Savannah

   • Environ 3.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Savannah
   Détail du jour 4

   We leave Charleston at 8:30 am and head south into the Lowcountry. First, a short detour on Johns Island to the Angel Oak, a live oak thought to be several hundred years old, whose limbs spread so wide that some rest on the ground. Then it is about an hour and a half through marsh, pine and tidal creeks to Beaufort, a small town of white porched houses on the Beaufort River. Lunch is a sit-down meal on Bay Street, then a walk past the house of Robert Smalls, who was born enslaved in Beaufort, steered a Confederate steamer out of Charleston harbour to the Union fleet in 1862 with his family aboard, and later served in Congress; the house is private, so we see it from the street. Across the bridge on St Helena Island we reach the Penn Center by about 2 pm, well before its museum closes at 4. It grew from one of the first schools for freed people, opened in 1862, and tells the Gullah Geechee story of the Sea Islands. Savannah is about an hour and a quarter on, and the evening is free.

   Compris

   • The Angel Oak on Johns Island
   • Sit-down lunch on Bay Street in Beaufort
   • Walk through Beaufort's historic district, past the Robert Smalls house
   • The Penn Center and its museum on St Helena Island

   Temps libre : Evening free in Savannah

   Activité : One of the two longest drive days, about 3.5 hours in four legs, broken by the oak, lunch and the Penn Center. Day 4 always falls on a Thursday or Friday, when the Penn Center museum is open.

   

5. Jour 5 : Savannah's squares and Bonaventure

   A morning on foot in Savannah, then Bonaventure Cemetery

   • Environ 30 min de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Savannah
   Détail du jour 5

   Savannah was laid out in 1733 by James Oglethorpe as a grid of wards around open squares, and 22 of them survive, each shaded by live oaks and Spanish moss. We walk them in the cool of the morning with your guide: Johnson and Wright squares, Chippewa Square, Madison and Monterey squares, down to the white fountain in Forsyth Park. On Oglethorpe Square we visit the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters, a Regency house of 1819 whose carriage house still holds the rooms where the enslaved household lived, with traces of their blue-painted ceiling. Lunch is sit-down in the historic district. After a rest through the heat of the day we drive fifteen minutes east to Bonaventure Cemetery, laid out on an old plantation above the Wilmington River, where moss hangs from avenues of oaks over Victorian monuments; it closes at 5 pm, so we go mid-afternoon. In the evening, walk down the old cotton warehouse ramps to River Street and watch the ships pass.

   Compris

   • Walk through Savannah's squares to Forsyth Park with your guide
   • Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters
   • Sit-down lunch in the historic district
   • Bonaventure Cemetery with your guide

   Option plus facile : Ride between the squares in our van for part of the morning walk.

   Temps libre : Early afternoon and evening free

   Activité : About 7 km on foot in the morning on level pavements; Bonaventure is about 2 km on sandy paths.

   

6. Jour 6 : A day on Jekyll Island

   Savannah to Jekyll Island and back

   • Environ 3.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Savannah
   Détail du jour 6

   A day on the Georgia coast. We leave at 8:30 am and drive a little under two hours south, about 140 km on Interstate 95, across the marshes of Glynn, to Jekyll Island, a barrier island owned by the state of Georgia and kept largely wild. From 1886 it was the winter retreat of the Jekyll Island Club, a members' club of some of the richest families in the country, and their clubhouse and large 'cottages' still stand in the historic district, which we walk with your guide. At the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, a working rehabilitation hospital, you can watch injured turtles being cared for. Lunch is a sit-down meal on the island. Then we follow the Wanderer Memory Trail, which tells the story of the Wanderer, a ship that illegally landed more than 400 captive Africans on Jekyll in 1858, fifty years after the import of slaves was banned. We end at Driftwood Beach, where bleached oaks and pines lie on the sand, then drive back to Savannah for the farewell dinner.

   Compris

   • Walk through the Jekyll Island Club historic district with your guide
   • Georgia Sea Turtle Center
   • Sit-down lunch on Jekyll Island
   • Wanderer Memory Trail
   • Driftwood Beach
   • Farewell dinner in Savannah

   Option plus facile : Stay in Savannah for a free day instead, and join the group again at the farewell dinner.

   Option plus active : Rent a bicycle on the island and ride the flat paths to Driftwood Beach while the group follows by van.

   Activité : About 3.5 hours of driving in two legs of a little under two hours each, as long as day 4 but with the whole middle of the day on the island. Driftwood Beach is best near low tide, so the order of the day may change with the tide table.

   

7. Jour 7 : Tybee Island and home

   Savannah to Tybee Island, then Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport

   • Environ 1.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner
   Détail du jour 7

   A last morning on the coast. Tybee Island is about half an hour east of Savannah at the end of the marsh road, past Fort Pulaski. We are at the Tybee Island Light Station when it opens at 9 am. A light has stood on this point since 1736, the station calls itself Georgia's oldest and tallest, and anyone who wants to can climb the tower for the view over the mouth of the Savannah River, the beach and the Atlantic, while others walk down to the sand or sit in the keepers' garden. We leave at about 11:30 and drive about 45 minutes to Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), arriving at about 12:30 pm, and your guide checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm. If your flight is earlier, we take you straight from the hotel to the airport, about 25 minutes. If you would like to stay on in Savannah, tell us when you book and we can add a night at the group hotel.

   Compris

   • Tybee Island Light Station and museum
   • Drop-off at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)

   Option plus facile : Skip the climb and walk on Tybee's beach instead, or go straight to the airport for an early flight.

   Option plus active : Climb the Tybee lighthouse, about 178 steps to the gallery.

   Activité : Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm to see Tybee.

Faune et météo : Spring brings azaleas and mild days, and autumn is warm and usually drier once September is past. Summer is hot and humid with afternoon storms, and the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to November, so we watch the forecast and can swap days around. Dolphins are often seen in Charleston Harbor from the Fort Sumter boat.

• Charleston3 nuits
• Savannah3 nuits