Does anyone have any travel recommendations for Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama (or Tennessee and Kentucky en route)? I'll be travelling solo this summer for three weeks and want to see some of the well-known sights but also plenty of little-known gems. My style of travel is a bit like a Louis Theroux documentary as in I'm looking for stories which is why I'm starting in Washington DC with a four-hour police patrol in one of the toughest districts in the city (possibly worse than South Bermondsey). Hopefully, some of you can help with advice. Cheers.
3
Comments
Louisiana is interesting, New orleans and the french quarter are amazing, so many bars where there are jazz musicians jamming it out in the street and stuff. Definitely felt a bit empty after katrina but i went there 6 years ago now (jeez! That long ago..) so might have got more people back. Be sure to go on the ghost walk round the french quarter, was so interesting.
Would also recommend a swamp tour to see some gators.
Mississippi, not so much really IMO, unless you're really, really keen on Antebellum Plantation Houses.
If you get as far as Alabama, spend a few hours popping across the border into the Florida panhandle and visit Seaside. It's the location of The Truman Show movie and is a truly weird/unique place.
Memphis and Nashville are wall-to-wall music - it's impossible to miss it really there are even frequent street performances.
Enjoy!
The entrance to Beale St. Never did understand the "no reptiles" rule!
Oh, and you'll need the appropriate headwear:
This may be more your thing though...
We visited a town in Arkansas called Helena which was well known for being a central point of the black civil rights movement and still holds some of the values and feelings. We had lunch at a place (Big Mommas Luncheonette or something - will dig out the name). Basically you pretty much sit in her living room and she cooks you up a selection of Deep South cuisine. The fried chicken was flipping amazing. That was 7 years ago - she was ancient then so don't know if it will still be there.
I liked visiting Oxford MS which is where Ole Miss is. Crazy old school campus town - where the Uni football team has a stadium which looks like it holds about 80k or something.
It isn't blue and it doesn't come from Kentucky. It's a European grass and it's green.
Found the museum a very moving experience.
Beal Street with its blues and Jazz clubs is a must.
Visited Graceland although I'm not an Elvis fan
Went to Helena in Arkansas to a dusty old shop that had the biggest collection of blues records and memorabilia i've ever seen.
Drove highway 61 to New Orleans.
Brilliant trip.
Also drove the Skyline drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
650 miles of Blue ridge mountains.
Charleston and Savannah are worth a look.
Could go on and on about the deep South - I love it.
The very rough plan is to catch a bus to somewhere like Louisville or Nashville, etc, then hire a car and do a loop through the three states I mentioned, with New Orleans as my halfway point.
I've always wanted to see Langley myself, where the CIA is. My old company had an office in Falls Church which is basically the Langley suburb, but never got around to it. I'm pretty sure they do tours, although one of the reasons I haven't made it yet is because they probably frown upon questions like "how many foreign, democratically elected or popular leaders were plotted to be killed in this build? Because I can name about ten off the top of my head."
The Blue Ridge Mountains are meant to be lovely.
I've heard great things about Savannah and Charleston. I believe it's Charleston that is haunted, so defo check out a ghost tour.
If you're interested in the racial/racist history of the US, Birmingham, AL and Atlanta are both interesting. Birmingham is where the bus boycott was, which really brought the civil rights movements of the '50s and '60s to the fore. Also, on this subject, the Guardian journalist Garry Young has written some really interesting books, including
I know a lot of people who dig Memphis, both for the history, but also as a cool, emerging city for young people to live affordable. Same for the Charlotte area.
I'll look into the Langley idea. I had a brief chat at the Hay Festival with Michael Hayden, former CIA and NSA chief which has made me curious about their work - albeit we only spoke about 'Homeland'!
Thanks for all the other suggestions, especially the book; I'll bear them all in mind for sure.
Valiantphil: I'll take Burt Reynolds as well.
Policing has come under scrutiny in the last few years, again, and not necessarily wrongly, but policing in this country is very, very hard. I think the fact that you seek out that kind of exposure is excellent.
The CIA has an incredibly interesting history. There is a group of maybe 20-30 men who had an incredibly large impact on the world from the 1950s-1980s, from Iran to Guatemala to Cuba to Vietnam to Germany to having the then sitting president of the United States killed, and then Iran Contra and Afghanistan in the 80s. And these are men whose names many historian forget.
All that said, I don't know that Langley is necessarily the place to go for a look into that history. If it's something that interests you, "A Legacy of Ashes" is a really interesting book. My drive to go to Langley is in part because I have such a keen interest in this part of history, and it would be interesting to me to stand there and know I'm standing in what was once one of the epicenters of the world. I don't know that it would hold that same appeal to someone relatively new to the topic.
All the best to you. Do you plan to keep a photo diary or a journal/blog or anything? If so, would love to read it.
I am thinking of doing some writing so I'll let you know if I set something up. Thanks again for the tips.
http://www.bristolmotorspeedway.com/home/
Obvs in Louisianna you'll be visiting NOLA, pleanty of great stories there waiting to be told. Take a trip to the plantations in Louisiana, a completely different side to the American story there, but very important for understanding the modern USA.
I have to say I was amazed when I went into a black barbers in Mississippi and asked if it would be OK to come in for a haircut. They all looked stunned, that I should be considering coming in. in fact the barber said he'd never cut a white mans hair before, so I said if he didn't mind, nor would I. Incredible that in some places segregation still exists.
We got the bus from beale St to graceland when talking to an American couple the next day was told "your mad white people don't get the bus to graceland".
When we thought about it we were the only white people on the bus.