Georgia Travel Guide

Georgia offers activities for all ages... Atlanta for travelers who want a city vacation, the North Georgia mountains for hiking, Savannah for elegant homes, and lots of picturesque areas in between.

Georgia's Top Vacation Spots

Atlanta – a world-class city with arts, culture, shopping, and transportation.

Cumberland Island National Seashore

North Georgia – fun mountain towns like Dahlonega

Savannah – historic squares and homes

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

Georgia History

Georgia had been settled for thousands of years by Native Americans by the time the first Europeans arrived.  Hernando de Soto came here came to find gold from 1539 - 1542.  In de Soto’s wake, diseases he and his men brought from Europe wiped out many of the Native American villages he’d documented.  Stone walls, ceremonial mounds, and effigies are all that remain today of some of these early tribes.

By the time the next Europeans arrived, some 150 years later, Cherokees and Creeks were the only remaining Native American tribes in Georgia.  Britain and Spain bumped up against each other’s colonist expirations with skirmishes, treaties, and manipulation of the Indians.

British settlement began in the 1730s with James Oglethorpe who saw it as a place to bring England’s debtors.  Savannah was founded in 1733.  Until 1749 there was a ban on slavery.  But from 1750 – 1775, slaves were brought in to work the rice and indigo plantations.  In the coastal areas, slaves developed the Gullah culture, preserving their African heritage. 

Colonial Georgia's conflict with the British rulers began in the 1760s.  With the beginning of the American Revolution, Georgia became one of the original 13 colonies to declare independence. 

During the Civil War, Georgia became a battleground.  When General Sherman concluded his March to the Sea, much of Georgia lay wasted.

The Civil Rights era of the 1960s saw Atlanta’s rise as “the city too busy to hate.”  The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta provides a thorough look at the era and its aftermath.

In recent years Atlanta has maintained its economic power.  North Georgia’s mountain communities – steeped in poverty not so long ago – are thriving with retirees and tourists.  And Savannah maintains its genteel streets and homes.