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South Carolina/Georgia

The Best of Charleston and Savannah: A Tale of Two Cities

Program No. 21715RJ

Discover the charms of Charleston and Savannah with plenty of time on your own, and learn about basket weaving, explore plantations, visit Civil War forts and enjoy local cuisine.

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8 days

7 nights

15 meals

7B 4L 4D

Check-in, Registration, Orientation, Welcome Dinner

Charleston, SC

Charleston & Lowcountry, The Battery, Gullah Culture

Charleston, SC

Sweetgrass Baskets,Taste of Charleston,Free Time

Charleston, SC

Middleton Place, Magnolia Plantation, Sound of Charleston

Charleston, SC

To Savannah, Beaufort, Savannah Landmarks

Savannah, Georgia

Andrew Low House, Isaiah Davenport, Free Time

Savannah, Georgia

Old Fort Jackson, Wormsloe Historic Site, Free Time

Savannah, Georgia

Transfer to Airports, Program Concludes

Savannah, Georgia

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At a Glance

Charleston and Savannah — the grand dames of the antebellum South. Journey from one to the other as you learn about Southern culture at plantations, Civil War forts, Lowcountry landmarks and landscaped gardens. Hear tales of centuries past and experience elegant architecture and culinary delights in these waterfront cities where cobblestone streets and historic homes spill over with history and charm.

Activity Level

Keep the Pace

Walking between 1-3 miles daily on a mix of concrete paths and uneven terrain; stairs at museums, historic houses, restaurants; getting on/off buses and trolley.

Best of all, you’ll…

Walk the grounds of an 18th-century Charleston plantation that has survived revolution and civil war, and hear the cannons firing at Savannah’s Old Fort Jackson.
Savor the diverse Lowcountry flavors of both cities.
Witness the art and learn the history of sweetgrass basket weaving as demonstrated by a local Charlestonian, and learn about the Gullah culture through music.

General Notes

Select dates are designated for small groups and are limited to 24 participants or less. Program includes independent time to explore the city and several meals on your own. Group Leaders will provide directions for self-directed excursions. Suggestions for free-time activities provided in preparatory materials.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Ruth Miller

Ruth Miller, a graduate of Duke University, has lived all over America and journeyed throughout the world. As a Charleston historian and excursion leader, she enjoys tying local history into the American story and worldwide events. Ruth is the author and co-author of numerous books, including “Charleston Charlie — A Family Activity Book for Kids of All Ages,” “Touring the Tombstones,” and “The Angel Oak Story.” She is a member of the South Carolina Historical Society and the National Trust.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Ruth Miller View biography

Al Miller View biography

Al Miller received a bachelor’s degree in English, speech and drama from Baptist College — now Charleston Southern University. He is a recognized historian specializing in local, black history with emphasis on the Gullah-Geechee culture. He brings his musical talent to his lectures for a unique perspective. Al enjoys leading educational excursions, is a licensed real estate agent, as well as a historian and lecturer on black history. He is also a member of numerous organizations, including the Choraliers Music Club of Charleston, Alpha Phi Fraternity and St. James A.M.E. Church.

Darryl Stoneworth View biography

Darryl Stoneworth, along with wife Angela, has been selling home-crafted sweetgrass baskets in the Charleston City Market since May 2009. If you happen by his stand, you'll know Darryl by his omnipresent smile. The couple is also constructing their first roadside basket stand along Highway 17N in Mount Pleasant, N.C. The town has renamed and dedicated this stretch of the highway in tribute to the hamlet's sweetgrass basket makers.

Jamie Keena, Period Music View biography

Jamie Keena loves to sing old songs, including folk songs of America and the British Isles, patriotic airs, and “songs written to order” by Tin Pan Alley composers. With a bachelor’s in music from the College of William and Mary, Jamie accompanies his singing with guitar, banjo and ukulele, and also plays the fife, hammered dulcimer and concertina.

Georgia Murphy View biography

Georgia Murphy grew up in a small middle Georgia town, but has called Charleston home for the past 37 years. She has been a licensed excursion leader for the City of Charleston for 28 years, and considers sharing the beauty and history of Charleston and the Carolina Low Country as one of her greatest joys.

Fran Bennett View biography

Fran has been a licensed travel leader in Charleston for 17 years. Her family came to Charleston in 1680 and although she was not born in Charleston her family moved back when she was 4 years old. Fran is a graduate of Boston University and is married with four children and five grandchildren.

Becky Alexander View biography

Becky Alexander lives in Alabama and leads programs in the United States and Canada. She is also a multi-published magazine writer and book author. She has traveled extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe.

Joyce E Harvison View biography

Joyce Harvison epitomizes Southern hospitality. A native of Savannah, she has worked for the last 30+ years in Savannah's Historic District, first as an insurance agent, and the last 16 years as a Director of Groups/Charters with a local trolley company showing off the city’s best sights to visitors from near and far. She revels in treating family, friends, and visitors to the best possible time, including hidden gems when they visit her home town. Joyce has two daughters and three grandchildren.

Suggested Reading List (10 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

Search for a Title

The Best of Charleston and Savannah: A Tale of Two Cities

Program Number: 21715

The Angel Oak Story

by Ruth Miller and Linda Lennon

The Angel Oak is a Southern live oak tree located in Angel Oak Park, in Charleston, South Carolina, on Johns Island, one of South Carolina's Sea Islands. It is estimated to be 300-400 years old, stands 65 ft (20 m) tall, measures 28 ft (8.5 m) in circumference, and shades with its crown an area of 17,000 square feet. This book goes in depth regarding the history of this mighty tree.

A Black Woman's Civil War Memories

by Susie King Taylor Weiner

Reissue of a 1902 book by a nurse/teacher/former slave-memoirs of a black woman around the time of the Civil War.

Civil War Savannah

by Derek Smith

Glimpse into the lives of the men and women who forever will be associated with Savannah through the wartime deeds.

South of Broad

by Pat Conroy

Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, South of Broad gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe, glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father; hardscrabble mountain runaways Niles and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X; and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades-from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The ties among them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, and Charleston's dark legacy of racism and class divisions. But the final test of friendship that brings them to San Francisco is something no one is prepared for. South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

Referred to in Savannah as "The Book"-non-fiction, adult language-account of a local antique dealer, Jim Williams', four (!) trials for the same murder in the 1980's-also a Clint Eastwood movie released in 1997.

A Witness to History: Charleston's Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon

by Ruth Miller and Ann Taylor Andrus

The Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the great buildings of Colonial America. Serving as city hall, customs house, post office and prison; as the British Headquarters during the occupation of Charles Towne and then host to a great ball honoring George Washington, the Exchange has been an eyewitness to America’s history. This stoic building-—designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975—-has been described as the best example of the dignity and ornament of the traditional English “exchange-town hall” design of the eighteenth century built in the United States. From within its Great Hall to deep below in the Provost Dungeon, the Exchange has played a vital role in American history. Andrus’ and Miller’s fast-paced and readable survey of the history and significance of the Old Exchange Building will appeal to visitor and serious historian alike.

A Short History of Charleston

by Robert N. Rosen

A concise small history of Charleston that is easy to read and enjoyable.

Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War

by David Detzer

An original and deeply human portrait of soldiers and civilians caught in the vortex of war. So vividly does Allegiance re-create the events leading to the firing of the first shot of the Civil War on April 12, 1861, that we can feel the fabric of the Union tearing apart. It is a tense and surprising story, filled with indecisive bureaucrats, uninformed leaders, hotheaded politicians, and dedicated and honorable soldiers on both sides. The six-month-long agony that began with Lincoln's election in November sputtered from one crisis to the next until Lincoln's inauguration, and finally exploded as the soldiers at Sumter neared starvation. At the center of this dramatic narrative is the heroic figure of Major Robert Anderson, a soldier whose experience had taught him above all that war is the poorest form of policy. With little help from Washington, D.C., Anderson almost single-handedly forestalled the beginning of the war until he finally had no choice but to fight. David Detzer's decade-long research illuminates the passions that led to the fighting, the sober reflections of the man who restrained its outbreak, and individuals on both sides who changed American history. No other historian has given us a clearer or more intimate picture of the human drama of Fort Sumter.

Touring the Tombstones

by Ruth Miller

A series of guide books to Charleston's 18th century graveyards.

The Complete Stories: Flannery O'Conner

by Flannery O'Conner

Native Savannian who won the 1971 National Book Award for Fiction. Thirty-one tales depicting the humorous, of near tragic conditions of life in the Deep South during the fifties.

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The Best of Charleston and Savannah: A Tale of Two Cities

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At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

General Notes

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