Georgia

Atlanta is a green, spread-out, endlessly energetic city, and its headline attractions cluster conveniently downtown around Centennial Olympic Park, legacy of the 1996 Games. The Georgia Aquarium, among the largest in the world, holds whale sharks and manta rays in a vast ocean tank; next door, the World of Coca-Cola tells the story of the city's most famous export. Beyond the tourist core the real Atlanta reveals itself along the BeltLine, a former rail corridor reborn as a ribbon of trails, murals and breweries linking neighbourhoods like Old Fourth Ward and its Ponce City Market food hall to leafy Piedmont Park. Add the Atlanta History Center, the College Football Hall of Fame and one of the South's most exciting dining scenes — from soul food to global cooking — and the capital easily fills two or three days.

Atlanta is the home of the American civil-rights movement, and its landmarks are among the most affecting historic sites in the country. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, in the Sweet Auburn district, preserves the modest house where the leader was born, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he and his father preached, and the King Center with its reflecting pool and tomb — a free, self-guided visit run by the National Park Service. Downtown, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights connects that history to human-rights struggles worldwide through powerful, immersive exhibitions. Together they offer visitors a thoughtful, well-presented way to understand a defining chapter of the nation's story, and they anchor any serious visit to the city.

Founded in 1733 and laid out on a grid of leafy public squares, Savannah has one of the largest and loveliest historic districts in America — a walkable maze of oak-canopied streets hung with Spanish moss, elegant nineteenth-century townhouses, the green expanse of Forsyth Park with its famous fountain, and a cobbled riverfront lined with restored cotton warehouses. Just east, Tybee Island offers an easy beach day with a classic lighthouse. South down the coast, the Golden Isles — St. Simons, Sea Island and Jekyll Island with its genteel historic club — combine marshland, beaches and live-oak forest, while wild Cumberland Island National Seashore, reached only by ferry, protects undeveloped dunes, the ruins of a Carnegie mansion and a famous herd of feral horses. It is a soft, subtropical, deeply atmospheric corner of the state.

The southern Appalachians roll across the top of the state in a landscape of forested ridges, waterfalls and small mountain towns. The Appalachian Trail begins its 3,500-kilometre journey at Springer Mountain, approached past the plunging cascade of Amicalola Falls, the tallest in the Southeast. Nearby, Dahlonega — site of one of America's first gold rushes in 1828 — is now the heart of a growing North Georgia wine country, with tasting rooms in the surrounding hills. The Alpine-themed village of Helen brings a slice of Bavaria to the Chattahoochee River, the vintage Blue Ridge Scenic Railway trundles through the mountains from its namesake town, and Brasstown Bald, the state's highest point, gives four-state views from its summit tower. Autumn colour and spring wildflowers make this the state's outdoor playground.

Georgia's smaller cities carry an outsized cultural punch. Athens, home to the University of Georgia, gave the world R.E.M. and the B-52s and still runs on a lively college-town music and food scene beneath its landmark double-barrelled cannon. Macon, in the geographic centre of the state, was the base of the Allman Brothers Band — whose former home is now a museum — and erupts each spring into a Cherry Blossom Festival among hundreds of thousands of blossoming trees. On Macon's edge, the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park preserves great earthen temple mounds raised by Native American peoples more than a thousand years ago, one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Southeast. Historic Madison and the old capital at Milledgeville round out a rewarding heartland loop.

The state's natural set pieces are as varied as its cities. In the far south the Okefenokee Swamp, one of the largest intact freshwater wetlands in North America and a National Wildlife Refuge, is a mirror-black labyrinth of cypress, lily pads and alligators best explored by guided boat or canoe along its water trails. In the southwest, Providence Canyon — the so-called “Little Grand Canyon of Georgia” — glows with pink, orange and white gullies eroded from the soft earth. Closer to Atlanta, Stone Mountain Park surrounds a huge exposed dome of granite, one of the most visited attractions in the state, with a summit hiking trail, a cable-car Skyride and miles of woodland paths and lakeside trails. Between them they show a Georgia of genuine wilderness within easy reach of the highways.

Nearly every visit begins at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest passenger airport in the world and a major gateway to the whole Southeast. Within the city, the MARTA rail and bus network links the airport, downtown and the main districts, but Georgia is a big, spread-out state and a rental car is essential for reaching Savannah (about four hours southeast), the coast and the mountains. The climate is warm and humid: summers are hot and sticky with afternoon thunderstorms, while winters are mild, especially on the coast, with only occasional snow in the far north. The finest seasons are spring — when azaleas, dogwoods and the Macon cherry blossoms bloom — and crisp, colourful autumn.