Savannah Without the Mistakes

Savannah was laid out in 1733 as a grid of garden squares, and the plan remains the whole secret of visiting it, since everything worth doing sits inside or beside the squares and everything regrettable involves leaving them. The standing mistakes here are staying outside the grid, arriving in the wrong week, and mistaking River Street for the city. All three are retired below.

March and April deliver the azaleas and the soft air, October and November the golden version, and both book accordingly. The city's great calendar trap is the week of St. Patrick's Day, when Savannah hosts one of the largest celebrations in the country and the historic district becomes a green and cheerful sea at triple the rates, magnificent if chosen, ruinous if stumbled into. Summer runs hot and wet, softened by the squares' deep shade, and January offers camellias, empty streets, and the year's gentlest prices.

Sleep inside the historic district, on or within a block of a square, and treat anything advertising a free shuttle as a warning label. The district's inns occupy the old houses themselves, and the premium buys the only amenity that matters, which is walking out the door into the oaks. A car is a liability inside the grid, where parking is scarce and everything sits within a twenty-minute walk. Arriving drivers should park once, at the hotel, and surrender the keys until departure.

The squares are the itinerary. Twenty-two survive, each with its own character, monuments, and canopy, and the correct method is to walk the grid north to south along a different street each day, ending at Forsyth Park and its fountain. Savannah permits an open drink in a plastic cup within the historic district, a civilized anachronism the visitor should exercise at golden hour, one cup, one square, one bench. The house museums reward one or two deliberate choices rather than a completist sweep.

Skip River Street as a destination, since the cobblestone waterfront is worth one descent for the ships and the view and returns diminishing value after, particularly at night, when it runs to novelty daiquiris. Skip the trolley tours after the first day, using one early loop for orientation and then walking, which is what the city was drawn for. Skip any restaurant with a costumed greeter, and book the city's serious tables, of which it now holds a proud number, before arriving.

Book spring and fall weekends two months out, avoid or embrace the March festival deliberately, and pack for warmth in every season but deep winter. The correct souvenir is from the honey house or the pecan people, not the paddle-wheel gift shops. Fort Pulaski and the beach at Tybee fill a half day if the trip runs long, in that order.

On the last evening, take the cup, legally, to whichever square has become yours, and sit under the moss while the lamps come on. The general who laid this town out solved the visitor's problem three hundred years in advance. Stay inside his grid, and the mistakes never find you.