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Few American cities wear their history as openly as Savannah does. Laid out in 1733 by James Oglethorpe according to a grid of squares, parks, and trust lots, it remains one of the most intact examples of colonial urban planning in the country. The result is a city that rewards walking above almost anything else, where Spanish moss drapes the live oaks above Chippewa Square and Forsyth Park, and the architecture shifts from Federal to Italianate to Victorian within a single block. That physical coherence is not accidental; Savannah's Historic District was saved from wholesale demolition in the 1950s largely through civic determination, and the city has been protective of its fabric ever since.

The Historic District is the natural starting point for any visit, and the twenty-two public squares that punctuate it give the neighbourhood an unhurried quality unusual in a city of Savannah's size. The riverfront along River Street, carved into the bluff above the Savannah River, draws visitors to its cobblestones and converted cotton warehouses, while the Victorian District to the south offers quieter residential streets lined with painted timber houses. Forsyth Park, with its famous white fountain dating to 1858, functions as the city's communal living room, particularly on weekend mornings when the farmers' market fills the northern end.