Georgia      
Empire State of the South
Motto: Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation
 

Hotels       Airlines    Rental Cars

{State Bird, Brown Thrasher}  {State Flower, Cherokee Rose}  {State Tree, Live Oak}

Economy: Manufacturing, cotton, textiles, apparel, carpets, transportation equipment, processed foods, paper, lumber, kaolin, peanuts, tabacco, cotton, corn.
GEORGIA , largest of the Southern states, the bright lights of its capital Atlanta are very pretty, Alanta has one of the largest airports, tieing the: South, North, East and West air ways together. Apart from some beaches and towns on the Coastline, this overwhelmingly rural state is composed of slow, easygoing settlements where the best, and sometimes the only, way to enjoy your time is to sip tea an chat on the porch.

Today, bustling Atlanta stands as the unofficial capital of the South. The city where Dr Martin Luther King Jr was born, preached and is buried bears little relation to Gone with the Wind stereotypes, and its forward-looking energy is upheld as a role model for other cities with large black populations - though it does still suffer high levels of urban poverty and violent crime.

Atlanta's main rival as a tourist destination is the Georgia coast , stretching south from beautiful old Savannah via the sea islands to the semitropical Okefenokee Swamp , inland near Florida. In the northeast , the Appalachian foothills are particularly fetching in fall, while Athens has a reputation for producing offbeat rock groups such as REM and the B-52's. Further south , the agricultural heartlands are rich in musical history, but only Macon and ancient Ocmulgee provide reasons to stop.
Today's Atlanta is at first glance a typical large American city. Its population has reached 3.5 million, and urban sprawl is such a problem that each citizen is obliged to travel an average of 34 miles per day by car - the highest figure in the country. Cut off from each other by roaring freeways, bright lights and an enclave mentality, its neighborhoods tend to have distinct racial identities - broadly speaking, "white flight" was to the northern suburbs, while the southern districts are predominantly black. That said, the city is undeniably progressive, with little interest in lamenting a lost Southern past. Since voting in the nation's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1974, it has remained the most conspicuously black-run city in the US, and an estimated 200,000 black fami lies streamed in from states further north in the 1980s alone. The Olympics may not have been the triumph Atlanta so eagerly anticipated - even before the Centennial Park bombing tarnished the event itself, years of disruption and grandiose construction projects had left many Atlantans wondering whether the city had lost more than it gained - but with its ever-increasing international profile, cosmopolitan blend of cultures and hip local neighborhoods, the spirit and dynamism of modern Atlanta is a far cry indeed from its much-mythologized Deep South roots

The City
At lanta's layout is confusing, following old Native American trails rather than a logical grid system, with no fewer than 32 streets named "Peachtree"; take care to note whether you're looking for Avenue, Road, Boulevard and so forth.

Several of Georgia's SEA ISLANDS , like those of South Carolina, were divided among freed slaves after the Civil War. They remained poor, agricultural communities, however, and little now remains from those years for an outsider to see. Today they make handy alternatives to Florida as seashore breaks for tired inlanders.

The dense semitropical OKEFENOKEE SWAMP stretches over thirty miles down to Florida from a point roughly thirty miles southwest of Brunswick. Tucked away among its astonishing profusion of luxuriant plants and trees are something like 20,000 alligators, over thirty species of snake, as well as bears and pumas. You can only get in at the Okefenokee Swamp Park , a private charity-owned concession at the northeast end, on Hwy-177, off US-23/1, not served by public transportation (June-Aug daily 9am-6.30pm; Sept-May daily 9am-5.30pm; $14-18; tel 912/283-0583). Admission includes an hour and a half boat tour through the swamp (slick yourself with bug repellent), a serpentarium, a good interpretive center on wildlife, an observation tower, reconstructed pioneer buildings - and a lot of placid alligators sunning themselves in oblivious bliss.