Georgia

After a much-needed breakfast of cream cheese and bagel we packed up ready to leave Charleston and continue our journey. The night before was still lingering behind my eyes as a dull rhythmic thud that was pounding gently, but this was tolerable. The night was an enjoyable one and I was glad that it had left its mark.

We had met a few locals who were, rather surprisingly, sat in a small dark bar watching English football (that’s soccer to the uneducated) on a small flickering television set. Intrigued by their enthusiasm for the beautiful game, I had got talking to them and before long I was exchanging rounds of drinks.

After many beers and several glasses of bourbon, they had told us about the tight social community and the few good places to let your hair down in the city. They had also shared their frustration at the limited choices they had to socialise and the appeal of fresh conversation with outsiders. I have to admit that for me, the community that they described was actually rather appealing, especially when compared to the anonymity that can dominate much of the big city experience. But I guess that it is human nature to see the appeal in other people’s reality, and to take the good in your own for granted.

Before we left Charleston, I got talking to a woman in our Hostel who had managed to carve out a career as a professional traveller courtesy of the French state. …I’ll explain. Basically, she told me that she had worked out that if she works for a minimum period with a company in France and then quits, she is then entitled to two thirds of her salary in benefits for up to 12 months. So with this in mind she had been hoping between temporary jobs and seeing the world ever since leaving college 10 years earlier. I still can’t work out if this makes her incredibly resourceful or incredibly lazy, but if I am being honest, the fact that she had seen and done so much made me slightly envious.

At least a couple of the people that we had met in Charleston had encouraged us to head straight for the state Georgia and specifically the town of Savannah, which was a short drive south on Highway 17. This journey really emphasised the transition in the landscape from the northern states. Now Spanish Moss could be seen drooping lazily from Bald Cypress trees in and between occasional cotton fields that once facilitated the abhorrence of slavery. The almost sinister beauty of this place was emphasised by a rolling mist that appeared to follow us as we progressed slowly and hesitantly.


Eventually we arrived in Savannah’s historic district, which quite simply, is the most beautiful that I have seen anywhere in America. It boasts 22 manicured squares that are each circled by perfect examples of ‘Federal’ and ‘English Regency’ architecture. Between these impressive buildings stand wide pedestrian friendly roads that are lined by lush green trees that hang majestically in the gentle autumn breeze. It honestly looks like nowhere I have ever seen. We both loved it here immediately.



To most back home this city is probably most recognisable as the location of Forrest Gumps’ bench in the successful movie that bore his name in the mid 1990’s. Unfortunately, that now famous piece of street furniture has long since been removed and placed in a museum. However, the square where that famous scene took place still stands for anyone keen enough to wear a tight pastel suite and offer friendly locals a chocolate whilst waiting for a bus. We managed to refrain from doing this.

Kamikaze Camping

After many hours pottering through the pretty streets and shops that make up Savannah, we reluctantly left to seek a safe and appropriate place to sleep. This on the face of it may have seemed like an easy task. America is indeed a vast and predominantly empty space, so how hard could it be to find a quiet little spot to park up the Beast, set up our sleeping platform and get some much needed shut eye. Well, the answer to that question is that it is ‘very hard indeed’. First of all you have to deal with the fact that even though most of America is indeed empty, most of its’ empty spaces are owned and sectioned off by miles and miles of fencing that prohibit entry. Marry this with the fact that in a lot of southern states landowners have the legal right to shoot (yes that’s shoot with a lethal weapon) trespassers on their property, and you have an understandable recipe for fear. The only choices left open in this situation are either to find public land, which all looks deeply spooky in the dead of night, or to find a car park where the presence of vehicles are tolerated after sunset. If you are lucky you can stumble on this kind of car park quickly. If you are not, the search can take many hours.

This night it took many hours. Thankfully, we eventually found a car park next to a public boat launch on Skidaway Island, where we felt safe enough to sleep undisturbed by the slow driving pick up trucks with tinted windows that appear to dominate many late night roads in this country.

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North Carolina & South Carolina

For the first time on our trip we were enduring consecutive days without sunshine. Until now the persistent almost relentless good weather had actually started to cause us problems as we had both packed heavily to endure a cold, or at least a coldish American winter. Now after weeks of glorious almost uninterrupted sunshine, we had been forced to recycle a small handful of appropriate clothing. Therefore, it was with a sigh of relief that I put on my clean woolly hat and thick red hoody.

Still on the barrier islands that snake down the eastern shoreline, we continued south courtesy of a number of old creaking ferries that laboured through the cold choppy waters of the eastern Atlantic. The highlight of these islands was Okracoke, a place that was once synonymous with the fearsome exploits of one Mr Edward Teach aka Black Beard, an English pirate (from Bristol apparently) who terrorised ships on this coastline until his assassination in 1718.

View From The Beast

Eventually, we arrived at Bald Head Island, the location for some of the most frightening scenes in Scorsese’s movie ‘Cape Fear’. Here, a strange collection of pastel coloured houses stood pristine and eerily amidst a deafening silence. Nobody could be seen on the streets, yet cars could be seen parked outside almost every home. It seems that when this community moved to paradise, they did so to isolate themselves in giant cake-like houses that stand in insipid contrast to the natural beauty of both the sand and sea that surrounds them.

Bald Head Island

Our target for this portion of the trip was South Carolina, or more specifically Charleston, an attractive university town that sits roughly half way down the coastline of this historical state.

A bit of history…

Picture the scene. It’s the end of the 17th century. Back home Cromwell has died and the short lived British Republic that hat was his legacy has been replaced by the same monarchy that was so roundly defeated in the civil war. Now Charles II is king and he is rewarding those that supported his accession with favour and land. Up step eight British aristocrats now based in Barbados whose previous unshakable support for the monarchy is about to be recognised with the gift of Carolina, a colony which sits on the eastern shore of the America’s. Charles has named this colony in recognition of his father, Charles I whose execution in 1649 is still fresh in the collective memory of a nation that is expanding its control and influence all over the globe (in case you were wondering ‘Carolus’ is Latin for Charles. Apparently).

Now, with leadership secured, all is looking good for the colonialists. However, following the cheap sale of land to new settlers, Southern Carolina begins to seek greater autonomy, and by 1729 it has manufactured a split and recognition for itself as separate royal colony. This trend continues, and by 1776 South Carolina becomes the first American colony to officially announce their independence, first from Britain and then from the blossoming American Union in 1861. This act effectively kick starts the American Civil War.

Feisty lot these South Carolinians.


Charleston is a town saturated with history. Every street in its dimly lit centre stands as a monument to the industry and vision of those early settlers, whose legacy and achievements can be seen all around. In fact, so pleasing and pleasant is modern day Charleston, that it is hard to find a decent place to have a drink. This had the potential to be disappointing. But fear not. It is at times like these that Rebecca’s American insight is invaluable; ‘what we need is a dark doorway, some muffled music and the sound of loud laughter.’ She was right. Above a shop we heard what we had been listening for. Then a young hipster encouraged us to enter. This would be our first exposure to proper southern hospitality and the cause of our first hangover in 6 weeks.

© All Images By Paul