Anybody else going to the Highwater Music Festival in Charleston this coming weekend? My wife and I are travelling from Michigan and after leaving Charleston we plan to take five days travelling along the coast to the Jacksonville area and then on to Atlanta.
We thought we might spend a day/night in Beaufort and then two days/nights in Savannah. Any specific lodging (B&B or otherwise) recommendations in either of those city’s would be greatly appreciated.
From that point we are totally up in the air…St Simons Island/Brunswick…Amelia Island… historical downtown Jacksonville…other possibilities???
If you’re going to Charleston, Beaufort and Savannah, I’d guess you’d be more interested in Fernandina Beach (the north end of Amelia Island) and St. Augustine in the Jacksonville area. Both are walkable and historic with varied food options (St. Augustine is bigger and older and has more options).
St. Simon’s, the rest of Amelia Island and Ponte Vedra (between the Jax beaches and St. Augustine) are beach and golf resorts. Staying at more than one would probably be redundant.
Not sure what you mean by “historical downtown Jacksonville.” Downtown is centrally located as a base, and may have good hotel deals if there isn’t a convention in town but isn’t much of a tourist destination. There is a nice children’s museum on the south bank of the river. The area around Hemming Plaza is the latest attempt to transform downtown into something other than a place to go to work – you might be impressed or not. The Riverwalk lets you walk along either side of the river, which can be nice. After that I’m kind of drawing a blank. The Jacksonville Beaches (Jacksonville, Atlantic and Neptune in that order) are a better bet for variety.
If you like to read, absolutely don’t miss Chamblin Bookmine. The main store is a few miles south of downtown Jax on the west side of the river. It’s the best readers’ used bookstore in the world. Prepare to get lost there, and budget a whole afternoon if it sounds at all appealing – inside there’s a huge maze of bookshelves stretching over several buildings and additions. Did I mention that it’s the best readers’ used bookstore in the world?
My mother has lived in Savannah since the '70s, much of that time working in the hospitality industry. This is paraphrased from her:
If you’ve got money to burn, stay at the Ballastone Inn. Victorian atmosphere and very elegant, yet cozy. Any stay includes afternoon tea in a sterling silver pot, if you’re into that sort of thing.
The Green Palm has just a couple of rooms. It’s a duplex with the innkeeper in the other half. Her rates are mid-range, and I don’t think she’s ever gotten a bad review.
I’ve never been inside the Stephen Williams House (Barnard / W Liberty), but I know that the owner, Dr. Wall, lives there and cooks breakfast using historic recipes. My understanding is that much of the antique furniture there is for sale. I get the impression that it’s a quirky, Savannah sort of place. Not sure about rates.
The McMillan Inn on East Huntingdon St is mid-range. The building is lovely, and they have a small dip pool in the courtyard. Melissa is a wonderful cook.
I’ll send you a private message with information that I don’t feel comfortable sharing on a public message board.
If you love used bookstores, you have to go to Chamblin’s. By “readers’ used bookstore” I mean as opposed to a collectors’ used bookstore or (worse) an interior designers’ used bookstore. They have more dog-eared paperbacks than pristine hardcovers by a long margin. Also, while they deal in some rare and antique books, it’s mostly online and it’s not their bread and butter. Their pricing structure encourages locals to churn books back through when they’re done with them. It has pretty much served as an alternative, fee based library for a city with a historically underfunded public library system.
As for historic Jacksonville, the problem with the downtown area is that it burned to the ground in the Great Fire of 1905, so it’s kind of like saying “historic downtown Chicago” (except everything doesn’t close at 6 in downtown Chicago). The close-in suburbs (Riverside-Avondale on the Westside of the river, San Marco on the Southside) have local shopping/dining/entertainment and interesting domestic and public architecture, but no hotels I’m aware of or convenient public transportation. An AirB&B near Five Points in Riverside could be a nice option, though.
Please don’t rule out St. Augustine (unless you’ve already been there) – its Spanish Quarter stacks up against downtown Charleston and Savannah pretty well (not to mention two extra centuries of history). Fernandina has an antebellum brick coastal fort, Victorian houses, nice beaches and interesting history, but is small compared to Beaufort.