The Rough Guide to the USA: The South (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

Description

Practical travel guide to USA: The South featuring points-of-interest structured lists of all sights and off-the-beaten-track treasures, with detailed colour-coded maps, practical details about what to see and to do in USA: The South, how to get there and around, pre-departure information, as well as top time-saving tips, like a visual list of things not to miss in USA: The South, expert author picks and itineraries to help you plan your trip.

The Rough Guide to USA: THE SOUTH covers: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas

Inside this travel guide you'll find:

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EVERY TYPE OF TRAVELLER
Experiences selected for every kind of trip to USA: The South, from off-the-beaten-track adventures in the Ozarks to family activities in child-friendly places, like Nashville or chilled-out breaks in popular tourist areas, like Memphis.

PRACTICAL TRAVEL TIPS
Essential pre-departure information including USA: The South entry requirements, getting around, health information, travelling with children, sports and outdoor activities, food and drink, festivals, culture and etiquette, shopping, tips for travellers with disabilities and more.

TIME-SAVING ITINERARIES
Carefully planned routes covering the best of USA: The South give a taste of the richness and diversity of the destination, and have been created for different time frames or types of trip.

DETAILED REGIONAL COVERAGE
Clear structure within each sightseeing chapter includes regional highlights, brief history, detailed sights and places ordered geographically, recommended restaurants, hotels, bars, clubs and major shops or entertainment options.

INSIGHTS INTO GETTING AROUND LIKE A LOCAL
Tips on how to beat the crowds, save time and money and find the best local spots for soaking up the local history, scenic drives and sampling the music scene.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THINGS NOT TO MISS
Rough Guides' rundown of Little Rock, Memphis, Birmingham, Nashville and Jackson's best sights and top experiences help to make the most of each trip to USA: The South, even in a short time.

HONEST AND INDEPENDENT REVIEWS:
Written by Rough Guides' expert authors with a trademark blend of humour, honesty and expertise, to help to find the best places in USA: The South, matching different needs.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Comprehensive 'Contexts' chapter features fascinating insights into USA: The South, with coverage of history, religion, ethnic groups, environment, wildlife and books, plus a handy language section and glossary.

FABULOUS FULL COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHY
Features inspirational colour photography, including the stunning Mercer-Williams House and the spectacular Blue Ridge Parkway

COLOUR-CODED MAPPING
Practical full-colour maps, with clearly numbered, colour-coded keys for quick orientation in Charleston, Atlanta and many more locations in USA: The South, reduce need to go online.

USER-FRIENDLY LAYOUT
With helpful icons, and organised by neighbourhood to help you pick the best spots to spend your time.

Sujets

• USA
• Misisipi
• Carolina del Sur
• Carolina del Norte
• Travel
• General officer
• South
• South Carolina
• North Carolina
• General
• United States
• États-Unis
• Georgia
• US
• Tennessee
• Mississippi
• Kentucky
• Caroline du Sud
• Arkansas
• Alabama
• Caroline du Nord

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 01 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781789197303
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 12 Mo

Extrait

Contents
Introduction to The USA: The South
W here to go
W hen to go
A uthor picks
t hings not to miss
I tineraries
Basics
G etting there
G etting around
A ccommodation
F ood and drink
F estivals
T he outdoors
T ravel essentials
The South
N orth Carolina
S outh Carolina
G eorgia
K entucky
T ennessee
A labama
M ississippi
A rkansas
Contexts
H istory
B ooks
Small print


Introduction to The South

No two people may agree on the precise boundaries of the southern United States, but you’ll know when you get there. This book takes in the eight southern heartland states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. Take a road trip through the region, and you’ll face so many reminders that you’re in a world apart – a land within a land, with its own food, its own music, its own architecture, its own landscapes, its own traditions, and above all its own history.
Mark Twain put it best, as early as 1882: “In the South, the [Civil] war is what AD is elsewhere; they date everything from it”. Several generations later, the legacies of slavery and “The War Between the States” remain evident throughout. The eight states covered in this book were in fact joined in the Confederacy by five other states that also seceded from the Union – Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas. To this day, however, they continue to form the core of the South. That said, more than 150 years on from the end of the fighting, there’s much more to the South than the Civil War.
While there’s been talk of the emergence of the so-called “New South” ever since the war, there’s no denying that change has finally come. Much of that is due, of course, to the other epic historical clash that shaped the destiny of the South: the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The extraordinary intertwined history of those struggles, a century apart, makes any tour of the South fascinating: it’s simply impossible to travel any distance without encountering endless echoes of the two. Tracing the footsteps of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, from his birthplace in Atlanta to his ministry in Montgomery and his tragic death in Memphis is an inspirational, and potentially transformative, pilgrimage.
Let’s not forget the sheer joy of visiting the South. For many travellers, the most exciting aspect of touring the region has to be the chance to immerse oneself in its magnificent music . It was the South that gave the world rock’n’roll , and the blues before that, and its contribution to music in general cannot be overstated. There’s something very compelling about entering the shotgun house where Elvis Presley grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi, or exploring Graceland in Memphis, or standing at the very crossroads outside Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil. The real thrill, though, comes when you realise that the music of the South is still alive, and still means something to people, whether you get that from a honky-tonk in Nashville, a juke joint deep in the Delta, from a backwoods barn dance in rural Appalachia, or Rev Al Green preaching the gospel at his church in Memphis.
And then there’s the food . Succulent, smoky, aromatic barbecue is the obvious stand-out, with each state and city boasting its own fiercely-cherished favourite recipe, but there’s also the wonderful seafood of the Atlantic coast, especially the Low Country Boils of the sea islands, and the general glories of soul food, as found in cities like Atlanta and Memphis. You can even visit the first-ever KFC in, you guessed it, Kentucky.
The Southern experience is also reflected in a rich regional literature , documented by the likes of William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison and Harper Lee.




Smoky Mountains National Park
Shutterstock




Where to go
Unless you have three weeks or more to spare, you won’t be able to attempt anything like a comprehensive tour of the South, and you’ll have to focus instead on a few specific states. The good news is, each state is rewarding in its own way, and each also embodies the full diversity and richness of the region as a whole. Away from the urban areas, perfumed with delicate magnolia trees, the classic scenery of the Southern consists of fertile but sun-baked farmlands, with undulating hillsides dotted with wooden shacks and rust-red barns, and broken by occasional forests.
North Carolina , for a start, encompasses several utterly different regions. The windswept Outer Banks , the wispy skein of barrier islands that protect and parallel the Atlantic shoreline, have a remote and timeless atmosphere that can barely have changed since the Wright Brothers first took to the skies, or indeed since the lost colonists of Roanoke vanished into thin air. Inland, the dynamic communities of the “ Research Triangle ” – Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill – have an appealing cultural energy, while further west still the tail end of the Appalachian mountains offers spectacular scenery, along the Blue Ridge Parkway in particular, and vibrant, liberal-leaning, beer-chugging towns like Asheville . Keep heading west beyond the state’s southwestern corner, and you can dip through Great Smoky Mountains National Park en route to Tennessee or Kentucky.
Continue south along the coast from North Carolina, on the other hand, and, logically enough, you’ll find yourself in South Carolina . Assuming you’re not twenty years old and new to the delights of alcohol, you may not choose to linger in Myrtle Beach, but tranquil Georgetown , in the heart of the rice-growing Low Country, make a relaxing stop. Further south, South Carolina’s sea islands – St Helena Island for example, reached via a bridge from Beaufort – are quite delightful, and home to the Gullah-speaking descendants of African Americans left to build their own communities at the end of the Civil War. The state’s real highlight, though, is the elegant city of Charleston , which built its fortunes on slavery and was appropriately where the first shots of the war were fired.
Another hundred miles southwest, just across the state line in Georgia , Savannah is even more beautiful, with its dreamy squares draped in Spanish moss. Strolling its cobbled riverfront quayside, you could almost be in Portugal or some sleepy Mediterranean port, while the town itself has a seductive, laidback charm. Quite a contrast with state capital Atlanta , a go-getting metropolis of six million people that has spearheaded the growth, and redefined the image, of the entire South. Its Sweet Auburn district stands as a haunting memorial to the city’s greatest son, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr , but with its museums and galleries, vibrant neighbourhoods and sheer energy, Atlanta has its eyes very much focussed on the twenty-first century. Georgia has its fair share of stimulating smaller towns too, like Athens and Macon , and also some dramatic scenery, from the Dahlonega district in the north to the Okefenokee Swamp in the south.
Kentucky offers a different vision again, its rolling rural splendour encapsulated by its shimmering, bucolic Bluegrass Downs. It’s best known these days for its horses, with stud farms peppering the meadows around Lexington , and Louisville hosting the iconic Kentucky Derby . Further attractions range from Jim Beam’s whiskey distillery in Clermont and Colonel Sanders’ first-ever fried chicken diner in Corbin to the birthplaces of American heroes Abraham Lincoln and Muhammad Ali .
For music lovers, Tennessee is arguably the most rewarding state of all. Sprawling superbly beside the Mississippi, Memphis lives up to every expectation. Even when you’ve toured Sun Studio , listening to Elvis’ original recordings in the very room where the stardust descended, and swooned over the precious relics on display in Graceland , you’ve only scraped the surface. Still to come: an evening in the clubs of legendary Beale Street; a sermon in Al Green’s church; soaking up the vibes in the Stax Museum. Nashville too is electrifying, from the Country Music Hall of Fame to the Grand Ole Opry , by way of countless unsung honky-tonks. And Tennessee has its own share of natural treasures, including the nation’s most-visited national park, Great Smoky Mountains . Be sure to pay your respects to Dolly Parton in Dollywood en route.
Alabama owes its primary role on tourist itineraries to the legacy of the Civil Rights era. It was in state capital Montgomery that Dr Martin Luther King , Jr served as pastor of his first church, and took on leadership of the bus boycott prompted by Rosa Parks – it brings home the raw courage of those days to see quite how close King’s church stood to the capitol itself. In nearby Selma you walk the fearsome bridge where marchers confronted state troopers in 1965, while Birmingham in the north has its own share of evocative memorials. Of course, there’s more than that to visiting Alabama than that, including plenty of wonderful soul food , and charming Mobile , a miniature New Orleans down on the Gulf Coast.
While Mississippi may have the most tainted history of any southern state – in the words of Nina Simone, “Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam” – it too holds a proud place in the story of popular music. It was the haunting flatlands of the Mississippi Delta that spawned the delta blues, which as Muddy Waters memorably put it “… had a baby, and they named the baby rock’n’roll”. The delta’s main town, Clarksdale , is filled with shrines to blues greats, while in every direction sleepy time-forgotten settlements hold further memories.To the west, Natchez and Vicksburg are venerable