The Low Road South

The fast way down this coast is the interstate, and it shows you nothing. The slow way drops from Charleston through the Lowcountry on the old roads, under the oaks and over the tidal rivers, through Savannah and on to the Georgia isles, and it takes three days to a week depending on how seriously you treat the stops. This is the route people drove before anyone was in a hurry, and it rewards the same approach now. Aim for spring or fall, when the light through the moss is the whole show and the heat is off the middle of the day.

Start with a night or two on the peninsula and walk it properly before you drive anywhere, since the city sets the standard the rest of the road keeps trying to meet. Leave by mid-morning heading south on Highway 17, with the bridges and the marsh opening up almost immediately.

An hour down the old road, Beaufort is the Lowcountry at its most composed, with the antebellum district sitting quietly along its river and the waterfront park made for stretching the legs. Lunch here, then walk the streets behind the park, which take less than an hour and stay with you longer than that.

Bluffton's Old Town is a short detour that thinks it is a destination, and by late afternoon it is right. The church on the bluff and the galleries fill an unhurried hour, and a dozen May River oysters on a porch is the correct way to end the driving day if you are overnighting, or to brace for the next stretch if you are not.

The road delivers you into Savannah from the north with the squares beginning almost at once, and the correct arrival is to park the car and not touch it again until you leave. Give the city two nights, walk it square by square, and rest up, because the trip has one more move left.

An hour south of Savannah the road runs out of continent, and St. Simons is where it was heading all along. Cross the causeway, check in near the village or at the King and Prince, and end the trip the way the island has taught generations to end a summer day, with dinner, a walk to the pier, and ice cream on Mallery Street after dark.