• Savannah Historic District — The tour explores the oldest and most architecturally significant areas of Georgia’s first city, and America’s first planned city.
• Johnson Square — The city’s largest square, often called Bank Square by locals, is where the colony was first organized in 1733 and became central to its culture and commerce, as it still is today. Home to City Hall, the burials of Washington’s second-in-command, Nathanael Greene, his son George Washington Greene, The Church of England, and much more.
• Savannah City Hall — Erected in 1906 on the former site of the 1799 City Exchange, this is where city government operates today, topped with its 22-carat gold dome.
• Christ Church Episcopal — On the southeast corner of Johnson Square, The Church of England has worshipped in various houses of worship since 1733 and is considered a masterwork of Classic Greek Revival.
• Wright Square — One of Savannah’s most charming city squares and one of the original four laid out during Oglethorpe’s founding period. Originally home to the first burying ground, courthouse, jail, and eventual burial site of the Indian King, Tomochichi. Few squares hold as much history.
• Bull Street — Named for South Carolina Royal Governor Colonel William Bull, who assisted in laying out Savannah, this central axis is truly the main artery of the walking life for which Savannah is world-renowned. It features endless architectural styles, churches, shops, cafes, and more, and is comprised of the five city squares that make up the tour route.
• Independent Presbyterian Church — With its towering 119-foot cast iron steeple as the highest point in the city, this 1819 architectural wonder built by John Holden Greene is one of Savannah’s religious epicenters, particularly for its Scottish heritage. Woodrow Wilson was married in the courtyard.
• Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace Museum — While this is a touring home business and the tour does not enter it, quality time is spent at this location. This 1820 home, built by prodigy architect William Jay, first housed a U.S. Supreme Court Judge, but would become central to the grand Gordon family, whose daughter Juliette Low is arguably most famous for the Girl Scouts of the USA. This family is a great American tale of immigrants who became pioneers, then industrialists and military figures, with women’s history elevated by Juliette Low — a dynamic family story of The American Dream realized.
• Savannah-Chatham County Public School System — Originally built as an elite school for boys, The Chatham Boys Academy, with frieze work done by noted Gettysburg Battlefield and Bonaventure Cemetery sculptor John Walz, is today home to the Board of Education for Chatham County.
• Chippewa Square — Yet another city masterpiece with both Colonial and Victorian rowhouses, churches, inns, pubs, coffeehouses, the Savannah Theatre, and the monument of Georgia’s Founder, Oglethorpe, done by Lincoln Memorial sculptor Daniel Chester French.
• Foley House Inn — Savannah’s first boarding house was built and run by an industrious woman and remains one of Savannah’s most beautiful and time-honored inns.
• Bull Street Baptist Church — This monolithic, stuccoed gem of 1830 is Savannah’s best-survived and most intact religious structure. Not only where Union and Confederate soldiers prayed together for the first time after the war, but it also includes a balcony setting once used by slaves and freedmen.
• James Oglethorpe Monument — Daniel Chester French may have done The Lincoln Memorial, but he called the statue of Oglethorpe in Savannah “my life’s finest work.” As Oglethorpe himself was 6’11”, the statue is often called lifesize but is actually over 9 feet in reality!
• Savannah Theatre — America’s oldest continually operating theater, even if multiple fires have altered the original appearance. This is where everyone from Oscar Wilde lectured, the Booth Family acted, and where players like Cesar Romero first performed on stage as a child.
• The Gallery Espresso — Savannah’s longest-standing coffee house is a local favorite and, when time allows, may permit a coffee and bathroom break.
• Six Pence Pub — With the London phone booth outside as a major signifier, there’s no mistaking the facade as a pub that would be found in any English town. Founded by a former chef of Kenny Rogers and always popular.
• Artillery Bar — Originally a Victorian stable for Arabian horses, this Moorish-inspired building with stunning rounded glass corners and a complete terra-cotta facade is where Henry Ford first opened a showroom in 1905. Today, it is a popular cocktail bar.
• Madison Square — With every square comes a new wonder for the eyes, mind, and spirit. Madison Square, with its wonderful bookseller, two tea houses, and two of the finest examples of Gothic Revival and Greek Revival architecture in America, along with other monuments, is a square to get lost in — and the tour will help! The Savannah College of Art & Design, America’s largest private art school, was founded here in 1976 inside The Chatham Artillery.
• The Old Sorrel Weed House Museum & Tours — While this is a touring home business and the tour does not enter it, quality time is spent at this location. An early Cotton Boom masterpiece, often called The Finest Example of Greek Revival Architecture in America, this touring home has become a modern paranormal phenomenon, in part because the company’s founder, Shannon Scott, was the producer on the Ghost Hunters episode that made it such a successful attraction! The tour discusses the Sorrel and Weed families, who were empire-level agrarian names of The Victorian Age.
• E Shaver Bookseller — This classic English-appearing bookseller and teahouse is one of the most popular stores in the entire city and is connected to The Eliza Jewett Home, who was one of Savannah’s empire women.
• Green-Meldrim House — While this is a touring home business and the tour does not enter it, quality time is spent at this location. This 1853 Gothic Revival home was built complete with gas-powered jet air conditioning by New York architect Robert Norris. Some credit owner Charles Green with saving Savannah from Sherman’s wrath by offering his personal house to serve as his resident headquarters for the eight weeks that General Sherman occupied the city. Visited by Harper’s Weekly in December of 1865, where they illustrated Sherman and his Generals’ roundtable style, Sherman sent President Lincoln our fair city as a Christmas gift.
• William Jasper Monument — Sergeant William Jasper, a South Carolinian plantation owner, gave his life to the defense of Savannah during The American Revolutionary War, and few monuments anywhere demonstrate such heroism of the individual and the fight and love for freedom.
• Poetter Hall — One of Savannah’s most elite local forces of guardsmen, of which there are still many proud members today, were once housed in barracks here as The Chatham Artillery. In 1976, two educators from Atlanta founded what would become America’s largest private art school, going on to restore over 100 buildings in Savannah with campuses extending as far away as Lacoste, France.
• West Jones Street & East Jones Street — With its original brick and asphalt brick streets, this largely residential street is Savannah’s most desirable and routinely called The Most Beautiful Street in Savannah. The whole east-to-west Jones Street corridor is perhaps the best example of rowhouses on one block and exemplary of what it is to live inside communal Savannah. Homes range from 1847 to modern takes on the old styles.
• Monterey Square — Among locals and tourists, Monterey Square usually takes the prize as the city’s most beautiful, serene, and European. Home to towering rowhouses, some in Barbados style, this is where Poland’s greatest hero, Count Casimir Pulaski, was laid to rest in 1779, where Jeff Davis hid out during The Civil War, and where famous preservation names like Lee and Emma Adler resided until their recent deaths. No tour would be complete without The Mercer House, famed from Midnight In The Garden of Good & Evil, as well as a stop by The Temple Mickve Israel.
• Pulaski Monument — To put it simply, there is no finer monument in Savannah, and to the people of Poland, no greater hero. Designed and installed by the Latvian sculptor R.E. Launitz, much controversy occurred when an international debate arose as to whose remains were under the monument and whether they were actually Pulaski’s. The debate will shock as will the prevailing mystery!
• Congregation Mickve Israel — While there is a paid museum here, the tour does not patronize the interior but spends quality time at the location outside. It shocks and amazes when telling people that there’s a Jewish community this old, this far South. Savannah claims America’s 3rd oldest, and to make it extra interesting, the most antique congregation attends Temple inside a Christian-styled building. The Temple Mickve holds the oldest Torah in the world at over 1,100 years of age, and the tour shares with guests the most unconventional wisdom about why this all occurred, but far closer to the real story than simply the parable!
• Mercer-Williams House Museum — While the home is an operating museum or touring house, the tour does not enter the location but spends quality time around the property. The 1860 mansion, built by the great-grandson of General Hugh Mercer (Washington Crossing The Delaware), later became a Masonic Temple and then the private home of preservationist and antiques dealer Jim Williams for 20 years. It was here in 1981 that a tragic killing occurred, which became the subject of the novel Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil, which some say became The New York Times Bestseller of All Time. While most tours cover this subject, the tour brings personal levels to it like no other tour in the city.
• Alex Raskin Antiques — For over 30 years, notable Savannah character Alex Raskin sold some of the city’s most amazing antiques out of the opulent and towering Colonel Hardee Mansion, with its stunning cast iron window lintels and wrap-around decorative balcony, along with one of the few surviving grand cupolas. Sold recently to The Ralson College for over five million dollars.
• Armstrong House — This recently restored 1917 mansion, complete with sweeping lion’s paw colonnade, is now the private home of hotelier and native Savannahian Richard Kessler, who founded The Day’s Inn company in 1980. Originally the private home of shipping great George Armstrong, his widow later donated it to the school. It was sold to Jim Williams, who lived there prior to moving into The Mercer House. Also featured in the 1962 film Cape Fear, starring Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck.

• Guided Narrated Tour

Ken Burns’ American Journeys tour chose us as contract recipients for a good reason - we have been uncovering and narrating the untold stories of Savannah for over 30 years. This is our identity. We achieve this through skilled historians, librarians, writers, archivists, genealogists, and storytellers who adhere to the highest standards set by Shannon Scott. Hopefully, this resonates with you. Our journey begins in Savannah’s Colonial areas, weaving not only parables but also the next great story chapters of Georgia’s earliest settlers, including ancient mound builders, Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans. We explore the stories of its architects, religions, women, industrialists, Freemasons, epic wars, and much more in what will become your favorite history tour! All stories are told by vibrant characters through their own perspectives, with humanity, intellect, humor, and everything that embodies one of America’s and the South’s greatest, and perhaps most surprising, melting pot of stories!

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.