American South

A cultural region of the American South made up of New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Charleston and Savannah, the birthplace of jazz, blues, country music and Southern food.

The American South is a cultural-geographic concept covering the southeastern states of the US. In travel terms it often means the "Deep South" and the historic cities around it, and it does not correspond to any administrative region. It is the birthplace of jazz, blues, rock and roll and country music, and also the region with the greatest concentration of the history of colonization, slavery and the civil rights movement. The core cities are: New Orleans (the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, live jazz, Creole and Cajun food, Mardi Gras); Memphis (Graceland, Elvis's home, Beale Street blues, the National Civil Rights Museum); Nashville (the country music bars on Broadway, the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame); Charleston, South Carolina (Rainbow Row, historic plantations, Fort Sumter); and Savannah, Georgia (22 squares covered by oaks and Spanish moss). You can drive the "American music triangle" of Nashville–Memphis–New Orleans, passing through the Mississippi Delta and the Highway 61 blues route, in about 7–10 days. Charleston and Savannah are about 2 hours apart and work well combined into a 2–4 day visit. Driving is the main way to travel between cities. Summers are muggy with frequent thunderstorms, and June–November is the Atlantic hurricane season. When visiting plantations, choose sites that confront the history of slavery directly (such as Whitney Plantation).

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