Road Trip through the
South-Eastern USA
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee
Jan 27th - Feb 4th, 2024
This is my trip report about a beautiful and fun road trip through five south-eastern states of United States.
I flew directly from Bolivia to Miami, picked up my rental car and drove to the Florida gulf coast, where I picked up Rosie in Venice, near Sarasota. After a lovely brunch the next morning with her American family, we headed out to start our road trip. Before leaving Sarasota, we stopped at the huge Siesta Beach, which is famous for its perfect white sand and is considered one of the best beaches in the US.
We first drove north over the huge Sunshine Skyway Bridge crossing Tampa Bay, and stopped over in St. Petersburg to meet up with a friend of Rosie's.
We spent a couple of hours walking along the waterfront and watching the pelicans catch fish.
St. Augustine
The drive from St. Petersburg across Florida to the Atlantic coast took a bit longer than expected, since we got stuck in traffic for a while. So we arrived well after dark in St. Augustine, where we stayed at the beautiful and historic Carriage Way Inn.
St. Augustine lays claim to be being the oldest city in the US. It was founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, and served as the capital of the Spanish colony of Florida for over 200 years. Florida briefly became a British colony in 1763, but was handed back to the Spanish Empire in 1783, and finally became part of the United States in 1819.
Most of the city center of St. Augustine is a pedestrian area, where you can walk along some of the oldest buildings in North America. It is beautiful, but also quite touristy. Most of the old buildings have been converted into restaurants, ice cream shops and galleries.
We visited the Lightner Museum, which is interesting not only for its collection of antiques, but even more so for its building. It is located in the former Grand Hotel Alcazar, which was built in 1887, and was one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the US around the turn of the century. Back then it also had the world's largest indoor swimming pool, which still looks impressive today, even though it has been turned into a café.
Opposite the Alcazar Hotel is another enormous 19th century building. This was once the Ponce de Leon Hotel, and is now the main building of Flagler College, a liberal arts universiy that was founded here in 1968.
The impressive Castillo de San Marcos was built in the late 17th century to protect the city from raids by English pirates. The fort has the form of a star, which was typical for Spanish and Italian fortifications built after the development of gunpowder and canons. The Castillo reminded me of the much larger San Felipe Fortress in Cartagena. There isn't very much to see inside the fort, but the views from the top of the huge outer walls make it worth the entrance fee.
Savannah
We left Florida in the afternoon and headed north for the three hour drive to our next historic city - Savannah, Georgia. We stayed at the stunning JW Marriott Hotel, which is located in a former coal power station right next to the river. The former turbine hall has been turned into a shopping and gallery space, and contains a collection of some of the largest gem stones and fossils we had ever seen. The port of Savannah is the third largest container port in the US, and it was an impressive sight having these huge container ships pass right in front of our balcony.
The city of Savannah was established in 1733 by General James Oglethorpe, and became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia. The Savannah Historic District prides itself as being the largest historic landmark area in the United States. The city, which has retained its original design, was laid out in a grid pattern including 22 beautiful square-shaped parks at each of the intersections of the main streets. Almost of all of the streets are lined by old trees that are covered in Spanish moss.
Most of the buildings in the historic district are from the 18th and 19th century.
The Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, a Catholic cathedral, was built in the late 19th century.
We had a wonderful lunch at The Olde Pink House, which is one of Savannah's historical landmarks. Built in 1771 it was once the home of a wealthy plantation owner and later housed Georgia's first bank. We went for traditional Southern cuisine of Fried Green Tomatoes, followed by Shrimp with Grits and Seafood Gumbo.
Charleston
After two nights in Savannah, we drove further north the next morning into South Carolina. Before heading into Charleston we stopped at Middleton Place, a former rice plantation, that has been beautifully restored. The main building contains a museum that tells the history of the many generations of Middletons, who lived here, as well as the history of the enslaved people, who built it.
The residence is surrounded by extensive and perfectly manicured gardens. Some of the trees are hundreds of years old and are all covered in Spanish moss.
We had one night in Charleston, which is the largest city in North Carolina. We stayed right by the water front in the historic part of the city, which is located on a small peninsula surrounded by the Ashley River Delta.
Charleston was founded by British colonists in 1670 as Charles Town, named after King Charles II. By the 18th century the city was the fifth largest city in North America. The city center has many beautifully preserved historical buildings, like those here along what's known as Rainbow Row.
The city also has a dark history as North America's major slave trading port. Almost half of all African slaves brought into the United States in the 18th and 19th century arrived here in the port of Charleston.
Charleston is a beautiful city, full of well preserved and restored colonial and 19th century buildings, but it doesn't seem like a touristy place at all. There is definitely more to see, than we had time for in one day.
Ashville and Knoxville
From Charleston we drove towards the north-east and into North Carolina. Our overnight stop was the town of Ashville. Rosie got a tip from our concierge in Charleston, that we should see the sunset from the Omni Grove Park Inn, which was a great suggestions. The Grove Park Inn is a huge and historical resort, built in 1913, which has been visited by various US presidents and numerous other luminaries during its heyday. The building's façade is made up of huge boulders and it has one of the largest entrance halls I had ever seen in a hotel.
Even though we only arrived in the late afternoon, Rosie managed to get us a table on the terrace, where we could watch the stunning sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains with a cocktail.
We stayed for a great dinner of bison steak at the Grove Park Inn, before heading to our hotel in the city center of Ashville. The next morning I decided that we should see the sights of the city and walk around a bit. It turned out there really wasn't much to see. And Rosie was not impressed by my sightseeing tour in the freezing cold wind.
We did however miss out on the main tourist attraction in Ashville, which is the Biltmore Estate, also known as America's Versailles. It turned out you really need a whole day to see it. We actually drove to the entrance, and tried to buy tickets, thinking we could just quickly see it from the outside. But when we were told that the drive from the ticket office through the garden to the main house alone would take 45 minutes, we decided to skip it, since we still had almost four hours of driving ahead of us today. Instead, we had time to stop in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is a lovely little town. We watched the boats on the Tennessee river and then had a very nice lunch of chicken and waffles on the main square.
Unfortunately, after lunch things went a bit sideways. When we returned to our car in the carpark, we found it with a flat tire. I spent nearly an hour and a half on the phone with a lovely lady from Hertz, who unsuccessfully tried to get us a replacement car or road side assistance. Eventually I gave up, and in a great team effort we managed to change the tire ourselves.
Since we only had this small temporary spare tire, we still had to drive to a garage, which we managed to reach just in time, 10 minutes before they closed. We got a new tire, and ended up leaving Knoxville in the dark, but arrived safely in Nashville around 9pm.
Nashville
I had decided to book two nights in the ridiculously large and quite cheesy Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, which is America's largest non-casino hotel with more than 2,800 rooms. (I had booked this right before Rosie told me that she really likes small boutique hotels.) The hotel surrounds three enormous indoor atriums, which contain a tropical rainforest, several waterfalls, a river and 15 restaurants. It is one of the more ridiculous places I have ever seen, but also a lot of fun.
We drove into Nashville the next morning, and our first stop was the Parthenon. Yes, not only Athens has one of those. The Nashville Parthenon is in fact a full size replica of the one in Athens. It was built for the Tennessee Centennial celebrations in 1897.
Unlike the ruined original one in Athens, the Nashville Parthenon not only still has its Elgin Marbles, it also contains a full size replica of the colossal gold statue of Athena inside.
Afterwards we drove into downtown Nashville.
It was Saturday afternoon, so the city center was very busy. Nashville is a really fun city. Almost every restaurant and bar has live music, and all of the musicians are really good. We noticed even the guy playing guitar on the street was way better than what you'd find in almost any other city in the world. We had a few beers and nachos in a couple of different bars and enjoyed the great live music.
We also spent some time in the Museum of African American Music, which was really fascinating. Lots of interesting information, great music and many interactive station, which inspired some among us to great performances.
In the evening I got us tickets to the Grand Ole Opry, which is a short walk from the Opryland Resort. It was a fun country music concert, with lots of different artists and bands, each of which performed exactly 3 songs.
We had time for a nice breakfast in our air-conditioned indoor rain forest the next morning, before heading to the airport for our flights to Boston and New York, concluding a wonderful road trip through five states.
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