Visiting Savannah, United States: Top Sights on Foot

Looking for things to do in Savannah? Georgia’s oldest city, founded beside the Savannah River in 1733, is known for its historic squares, grand houses, leafy streets and layered cultural history. Its compact historic core is especially rewarding on foot, with landmarks that connect architecture, art, religion, railways, African American heritage and the waterfront. Neywo also offers a free audio guide for Savannah with 74 narrated places.

Savannah is the capital of Georgia, in the United States, and one of the country’s most distinctive Southern cities. The best way to experience it is slowly: follow the squares, pause at the museums and historic homes, and listen to the stories attached to each street and building.

What to see in Savannah

Wright Square

Wright Square is one of Savannah’s original public squares, laid out in 1733. It occupies a central position in the historic plan, between Johnson Square and Chippewa Square, and its name recalls James Wright, Georgia’s third and final royal governor.

The square is also associated with Tomochichi, a leader of the Yamacraw people and an important ally of James Oglethorpe. A monument honoring him stands at the southeast corner, replacing an earlier monument that had been dedicated to William Washington Gordon.

Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist

Near Lafayette Square, the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist stands out with its white Gothic façade, pointed entrances, rose window and slender spires. It is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah.

The present building was largely completed in the nineteenth century. A major fire in 1898 destroyed much of the interior, but the walls and spires survived. Restoration followed, and the cathedral’s elaborate decoration was completed in 1912. Inside, the long nave, ribbed vaults and richly decorated sanctuary make it one of Savannah’s most striking interiors.

Mercer Williams House

The Mercer Williams House is an elegant Italianate mansion with tall arched windows and ornate ironwork balconies. Created by architect John Norris, it became widely known through Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Jim Williams bought the house in 1969 and filled it with fine art and antiques. Although the mansion is also linked to the crime involving Williams and his lover, visits place particular emphasis on the house’s architecture, early history and Williams’s work as a collector and conservator.

Andrew Low House Museum

The Andrew Low House was completed in 1849 for Scottish-born cotton merchant Andrew Low. Its architecture combines the symmetry of the Greek Revival style with Italianate details, including fluted columns, cast-iron balconies, bracketed eaves and two cast-iron lions guarding the entrance.

The formal garden follows a design created in 1849, with a central path dividing two hourglass-shaped planting beds. Inside, decorated ceilings, plaster cornices and carved woodwork offer a close look at nineteenth-century domestic design and social history.

Davenport House Museum

Standing on Columbia Square, Davenport House Museum is a Federal-style home with an important preservation story. Built by Isaiah Davenport in 1820 for his family and nine enslaved people, the property later became a neglected rooming house.

When demolition threatened the building in 1955, local residents joined together to buy it. That campaign became the first act of the Historic Savannah Foundation and helped launch a preservation movement that saved hundreds of historic buildings. The museum’s restored rooms use period furnishings, wallpaper and floor designs based on historical records.

Telfair Museums and the Jepson Center

The Jepson Center for the Arts is the contemporary part of the Telfair Museums complex. Designed by Moshe Safdie and completed in 2006, it added modern galleries and education spaces to Savannah’s historic district.

Its structure consists of two sections connected by glass bridges over a protected walkway from Savannah’s original 1733 town plan. The galleries include African American artwork, Southern art, photography and works on paper, alongside changing exhibitions.

SCAD Museum of Art

The SCAD Museum of Art serves students at the Savannah College of Art and Design while welcoming the wider public. Its permanent collection contains more than 4,500 works across art, fashion, photography, sculpture, prints, rare books and antiques.

The collection includes artists such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Annie Leibovitz. The building’s eighty-six-foot steel-and-glass lantern gives this former railway area a distinctive contemporary landmark.

Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed

The Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed form part of a historic railway complex dating from 1860. The red-brick passenger terminal and trainshed are now connected with the Savannah History Museum, where exhibits trace the city’s story from its establishment in 1733 to the present.

The wider site includes a cotton yard, blacksmith shop, brick viaduct, office car and caboose. The complex was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1976, with recognition expanded in 1978 to include the former Central of Georgia Railway Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities.

Georgia State Railroad Museum

The Georgia State Railroad Museum preserves one of the most complete surviving antebellum railroad complexes in the United States. Built by the Central of Georgia Railway in 1853, it includes historic railroad shops and terminal buildings later recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

Visitors can see a partial roundhouse with an operating turntable, a machine shop, blacksmith shop, boiler house, storehouse and print shop. Locomotives, railroad stock, model train layouts and antique shaft-driven machinery help explain how nineteenth-century railway work was carried out.

King-Tisdell Cottage

King-Tisdell Cottage explores African American history in Savannah and the nearby Sea Islands. Built in 1896, the cottage was threatened with demolition in 1970 before the City of Savannah and the Historic Savannah Foundation preserved and moved it.

The house is furnished to resemble a typical Black home of the 1890s. Its exhibits include an original bill of sale for enslaved people with Arabic handwriting by enslaved plantation workers. Outside, the Free to Fly fountain and a gas lamp dedicated to Sadie Steele add further context.

African-American Monument

Along River Street, the African-American Monument depicts a family standing together on a tall granite base. Created in 2002, the four bronze figures represent a father, mother, son and daughter beginning a new life after emancipation.

Broken shackles and chains at their feet connect the family’s freedom with the generations who endured slavery. The granite base carries an inscription by Maya Angelou describing the suffering of people transported aboard slave ships before ending with a message of collective hope.

Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum

The Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum is housed in the William Scarborough mansion, built in 1819 and designed by architect William Jay. The building is an early example of Greek Revival architecture in Savannah, with Roman-style windows and a monumental Doric portico.

Nine galleries present nautical art, ship models, paintings, carvings, knotwork and scrimshaw. Together, they tell stories connected with Savannah’s maritime heritage and the sea.

United States Customhouse

The United States Customhouse is a historic Savannah landmark created to house the offices of the United States Customs Service. It is one of the stops that helps connect the city’s historic center with its commercial and riverfront past.

Savannah Priory

Savannah Priory is a Catholic monastery of Benedictine monks, founded in 1877. It is also home to Benedictine Military School, bringing monastic life and education together in the city.

1996 Olympic Yachting Cauldron

Near Savannah, a park contains the 1996 Olympic Yachting Cauldron, a distinctive reminder of the city’s connection with the Olympic yachting events. It offers a different perspective on Savannah beyond its historic squares and nineteenth-century buildings.

Explore Savannah with a self-guided audio tour

A Savannah self-guided walking tour lets you explore the city without joining a group or following a fixed schedule. Neywo’s free audio guide includes 5 walking tours and 1 bus route, with narration available in 11 languages.

The walks range from 1.52 to 2.38 km and take between 68 and 87 minutes:

• Squares, Spires and Gothic Mansions — 2.32 km, 87 minutes, 11 narrated stops
• Where Savannah Began: Bluff, Customs and River — 1.52 km, 73 minutes, 10 narrated stops
• Forsyth Park to Jones Street — 1.81 km, 70 minutes, 10 narrated stops
• Rails, Art and Freedom on the West Side — 2.38 km, 76 minutes, 8 narrated stops
• The Theatres, Townhouses and the East Side — 2.14 km, 68 minutes, 8 narrated stops

There is also the Savannah Free Downtown Loop, a 2.5 km bus route lasting 11 minutes, with 6 narrated stops.

Download Neywo and explore Savannah at your own pace. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, with no group and no schedule—just the city, its landmarks and the freedom to stop whenever you want.