Savannah Revisited
Visiting Savannah, Georgia | January 2024
When I think back to our time living in the South, some of my favorite memories are the days we spent strolling the charming historic streets of downtown Charleston and Savannah. I like to romanticize these moments in my mind, leaving out all the other realities that accompanied living here — bugs, heat & humidity, pollen, not actually living in the heart of the city but rather a military base surrounded by suburbs and swamps where alligators could come right up to our backyard. Sometimes I wish there was a way to just teleport into one of these cities just to walk around for a couple hours, and then leave without worrying about any of those realities. And this week, we were almost able to do just that — we just had to deal with the traffic getting there since teleporting isn’t possible.
Because the arctic blast was worse the further inland you were, we decided to stick to the coast even though we had seen most of these places before. After leaving Okefenokee NWR, we drove North to Savannah, but took a highway up instead of I-95 so that we could get the next row of counties inland. It definitely started feeling more like the East Coast now, with much more traffic than we had seen in a couple weeks.
We arrived in Savannah with about an hour of sunlight left. Our plan for the evening was to attempt to stealth camp in the city for the first time. Overall the idea doesn’t appeal to us at all, we’d much rather stay in the woods, but there weren’t many options in the area and we knew we wanted to be downtown Savannah anyway. I did some research, and it seemed like other van lifers generally had very positive experiences, and claimed it was one of the easiest cities to stealth camp in. It also sounded more exciting to us than sleeping in a Walmart or Cracker Barrel parking lot, so we decided to give it a try!
We didn’t want to go downtown and park before dark or do our evening routine in the city, so we began our time in Savannah by visiting a botanical garden South of town. It was free to visit and dog friendly, with a long loop trail that wove through the gardens. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting, and of course there wasn’t much in bloom with it being January. But it was a nice place to walk Charlotte, and we were all alone here which made making and eating dinner in the parking lot much less awkward.
Before leaving the garden, we set up the bed in the van so that we could easily jump in the back when we arrived at whatever parking spot we found. Our main goal was to find a spot next to a park and not on a busy road. The one thing to look out for when camping in Savannah is the street sweeping schedule, but there are plenty of signs to let you know where and when not to park, so it was just a matter of finding a spot that was allowed for the night. It seems like a lot of people favor camping around Forsyth Park, but we found a smaller green space where we were able to parallel park on the right side of the road so that our sliding door opened right into the park. Since we felt pretty comfortable in this area, we got out for one more evening walk to give Charlotte a little more exercise before bed. We put up our window covers right away and kept the lights dim inside the van until we were ready to sleep.
It certainly wasn’t a quiet night with some traffic sounds, sirens, trains, and other usual city noises, but no one bothered us and we managed to get some sleep. The spot we had chosen was also free so we didn’t have to worry about meters. Overall it was a good first stealth camping experience, but we’ll continue to always look for camping areas outside of cities, and just do this when we can be sure it’s safe and legal and we want to be there anyway!
The next morning, we got up before sunrise and moved closer to the heart of downtown Savannah, parking near Madison Square, and set out for a morning stroll. The sky was overcast and the air was cold, but we toughed it out in favor of enjoying the city that had charmed us almost 8 years ago.
We walked through the neighborhoods, letting Charlotte be pokey in the green squares and admired the architecture. We made our way North to where we knew there would be some breakfast options. After circling around, we ended up eating at Goosefeathers Cafe. It was very affordable and delicious, with outdoor seating and a very friendly host. We enjoyed a slice of quiche, a breakfast sandwich, and bread pudding. One of the workers came out a few times to give Charlotte some love. My favorite memory from this morning is sitting outside, sipping hot chocolate, and hearing “When Emma Falls in Love” by Taylor Swift playing in the restaurant. After that, we made our long, slow walk with our pokey puppy back to the van. And just like that, I satisfied the craving I had to walk around this historic city one more time, and we were ready to move on to the next. Until next time, Savannah!
