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O'Connor house fireplace and painting of young Flannery

Flannery O’Connor in Savannah: House Tour

The life of Flannery O’Connor in Savannah was poignant and undoubtedly shaped her for the writing that would make her famous. I toured the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in Savannah, and what I learned helped me better understand the writer, the era and how she became a southern gothic novelist. Touring houses in the Savannah squares is one of the best activities many tourists participate in when visiting the city. It’s even better when it’s one where someone famous lived....

Thin trees in a swamp with green moss at their base.

5 Unique Reasons Congaree National Park is Worth Visiting

Synchronistic Fireflies and Champion Trees are two reasons to visit Congaree National Park. Plus, Congaree is among the least visited parks, making it blissfully uncrowded. I’ve been to 25+ national parks and there are essentially two types: those people go to and those they don’t. Some parks are filled with amenities, trails and things to do and see, and other parks quietly exist to protect rare and spectacular environments. Congaree is one of the latter. It protects the largest intact...

Boat next to Beaufort marsh

Exploring the Low-Country Charm of Beaufort, South Carolina

Beaufort, South Carolina, is known for its low-country charm, antebellum architecture, and quite a bit of Hollywood credit. It’s a little-known but wildly charming low-country community. On the coastline between Charleston and Savannah, Beaufort is worth visiting because it’s the quieter, lesser-known cousin of the two more famous cities, which is probably what brought Hollywood calling so many times. It has all the charm, Spanish moss and coastal character as those other great cities, but none of the bustle or...

Mount Pleasant Shem Creek

Shrimping on Shem Creek near Charleston

Mount Pleasant Shem Creek is known for its shrimp boats and seafood restaurants, so that is where I went just east of Charleston on the central coast to learn about Charleston’s shrimping history and try my hand at catching a few myself. I booked a tour with a local who promised to walk a group of us through the evolution of the shrimping industry in Shem Creek. To do that, we had to go back a few hundred years. Where...

Rene with the ghost hearst tour

A Night on a Hearse Ghost Tour in Savannah

A hearse ghost tour could only be pulled off in one city in America, maybe the world, Savannah. No place else has the hutzpah or the ghosts. I was sitting on my balcony on Oglethorpe Square at dusk, watching the tourists stroll by with ice cream cones in hand from Leopold’s Ice Cream around the corner. The scent of jasmine wafted on the summer breeze as the sky began darkening to a deep blue. I admired the drape of moss...

Charleston house with double staircase and clairvoyee

8 Reasons Charleston’s Architecture is unique

Charleston’s architecture is what makes the city the most charming of southern belles. It’s beloved for horse-drawn carriages, light-colored antebellum houses and more history than any book you read in high school. Charleston, South Carolina is a romantic little city along low country waterways is known for its rich cuisine, maritime story, and as the holy city for its 400 church spires. These things are anchored by architecture preserved and immaculately restored over hundreds of years. No place else can...

Rene Cizio standing on a white sand dune

5 Reasons White Sands National Park is Worth Visiting

There aren’t very many people at White Sands National Park. I don’t know how many national parks you can say that about anymore. On the days I was there, weekday and weekend, I was mostly morbidly alone. The sand is lovely, but who wants to go to a beach without water? And hiking in the sand, I can now tell you from experience, is precisely as difficult as you might expect it to be. But this place isn’t about the...

Wormsloe live oak allee

6 Reasons it’s Worth it to Visit Wormsloe Historic Site in Savannah

It’s worth it to visit the Wormsloe Historic Site for a day trip from Savannah if you like beauty, walking, and history. The site boasts one of the best Live Oak allées in the region and the ruins of the oldest standing structure in Savannah. If that’s not enough to entice you, there are also seven miles of trails to walk, hike, bike or meander. Also known as Wormsloe Plantation, it’s a state historic site about 15 minutes outside of...

Death Valley

One Day and Night Alone in Death Valley

On my way to Death Valley were palm trees and Joshua Trees. After that, there was nothing except desert sage covered in dust, making everything a monotone beige. Then there wasn’t even that. One can’t help but think of the famous Christian biblical passage when driving into Death Valley, “…into the valley of the shadow of death….” Or is that just me? My drive into Death Valley National Park was about five hours long through the Mohave Desert, so the...