Tours in Georgetown

The Savannah Walks leads newcomers and locals alike through the shadowy, moss-laden squares of Savannah’s historic colonial district during informative guided tours. Each outing provides a unique twist on the city and its unmistakable charm, covering topics such as Savannah during the Civil War, historic fine homes, majestic gates and gardens, and local pubs. Tour guides all boast scholastic bona fides, including among them three published authors and three college professors. The Savannah Walks easily accommodates school groups, civic organizations, corporations, celebrities, and animals standing on each other's shoulders under an overcoat.

As the owner of Savannah Belle Tours started leading tourists around the city with a private tour company, she soon developed a desire to experience the sites and stories beyond the standard destinations. So, she set out to gain extra insight and amusing anecdotes regarding Savannah's landmarks, using information from historical texts, extensive research with the Georgia Historical Society, and exclusive one-on-one interviews with the state's oldest oak trees.

Today, thanks to that insight, Savannah Belle Tours provides thorough, engaging walking tours of the city, offering the unique option to personalize any tour according to specific interests. Tours last 90 minutes and may include a standard, greatest-hits route of Savannah’s historic and military sites, majestic homes, and foliage-flanked architectural artworks or a more specialized jaunt, such as a mobile inventory of the town’s most haunted haunts or the birthplaces of its most famous mustaches.

Cool Savannah Tours uses its city as a stage for a multitude of entertaining, fun, and sometimes spooky tours. Trolley tours explore Savannah's historic architecture and some 1,700 restored buildings, each of which has its own story and complaints about kids these days. Alternatively, walking tours invite guests to pound the pavement in search of Savannah hot spots including haunted pubs and a variety of neighborhoods brimming with history left behind by the area's original settlers, pirates, and Civil War soldiers.

Local author Robert Edgerly is a virtual storybook as he spins old tales of Savannah on his walking tours. He waxes both historical and folklorical on subjects from the evolution of the city's 19th-century ironwork and architecture to the verifiable histories of its many ghosts. He carefully constructs his stories without non-historical padding. Each tale is the product of his extensive research, even tracking down eyewitnesses to local supernatural happenings to lend credence and color to his stories. During daylight hours, his daughter takes groups strolling down River Street, delighting them with tales of the city's cultural history or of the pirates that once hunted the nearby waters. At night, an adults-only walking tour relishes more sordid events and stops in local pubs for a mug of grog, shot of rum, or sip of delirium-inducing seawater.

Savvy Savannah Tours founders Rebecca King and Cyndie Parmerter pinpointed a problem with local tours: guests’ lack of connection to the content. Determined to bridge the gap between guides’ narratives and visitors’ imaginations without connecting their brains via electrodes, they designed a new brand of walking tour that sometimes incorporates interactive technology. The Scenes of Savannah Past guides are outfitted with iPads that display retro pictures of Savannah as they pass the locales in modern day. But other tours, such as the culinary Eat it and Like it or beer-tasting Savannah Suds, let the southern flavor of the city speak for itself.