Southern Plantation Tours Take You Back to Another Era

If watching
Gone with the Wind gets you dreaming about those long
ago days when elegant Southern plantations were flourishing, you’re in luck.
There are still many stately plantation homes throughout the south that have
been meticulously preserved. They offer tours led by knowledgeable docents —
many of them dressed in period costumes — who are happy to share stories
about what life was like back in the plantation era. Here are a few great
choices to
consider:

GEORGIA

Stately Oaks,
Jonesboro

While Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett
Butler only existed in the imagination of author Margaret Mitchell, she was
inspired by a large plantation in Clayton County that she visited as a child.
Stately Oaks is a Greek Revival antebellum home built in this area in 1839
that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s located in
Jonesboro, the city where Scarlett went to pay her taxes on the fictional
Tara in the movie. Tours, which are led by costumed guides, include the main
house, a one-room schoolhouse, a cook house and more, and visitors are
invited to relax in a rocking chair on the front porch or to stop by Juddy’s
Country Store for a bottled Coke and that famous southern treat — a moon
pie!

• Find
  a campground nearby.

LOUISIANA:
Great River Road

Spanning
approximately 70 miles on each side of the mighty Mississippi between New
Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Great River Road is home to many of the state’s
most famous antebellum plantations, many of which were built by the wealthy
sugar planters of the era.

Destrehan
Plantation, Destrehan

This
beautifully-restored mansion dates back to 1787 and is the oldest documented
plantation home in the lower Mississippi Valley. It is owned by the nonprofit
River Road Historical Society, and tours are led by costumed interpreters.
Demonstrations of activities such as blacksmithing, open hearth cooking and
bousillage (a clay and straw mixture used in construction) are also offered
on a schedule that varies by the day of the
week.

• Find
  a campground
  nearby.

Laura
Plantation, Vacherie

Laura Plantation take
visitors back in time to learn about the area’s Creole heritage. Tours
include the newly-restored Big House, the 200-year-old sugar plantation
homestead, three separate gardens and a slave cabin built in 1840. This
historic cabin is the site where the ancient West African tales of
Compair Lapin, better known as Br’er Rabbit, were
recorded.

• Find
  a campground
  nearby.

Oak
Alley Plantation, Vacherie

Known as “The
Grande Dame of the Great River Road,” Oak Alley Plantation takes its name
from the spectacular alley of 300-year-old live oak trees on the property
that lead to the Mississippi River. Guided tours of the Big House are
offered, and there are opportunities to visit a Confederate commanding
officer’s tent and reconstructed slave quarters and to watch a video in the
Sugarcane Theater about how sugarcane is grown. Interpretive maps are also
provided for visitors who want to explore the plantation’s 25
acres.

• Find
  a campground
  nearby.

San
Francisco Plantation, Garyville

Billed as “The Most Opulent Plantation in the South,” this galleried house, which was
completed in 1855, is designed in the Creole open suite style and features
five hand-painted ceilings. Tours, which are led by guides dressed in period
attire, include all 14 rooms of the plantation home as well as the grounds,
which are enhanced by centuries-old live
oaks.

• Find
  a campground
  nearby.

TENNESSEE

Belle Meade Plantation,
Nashville

This stately Greek Revival
mansion was commissioned by John Harding in the 1820s and was later expanded
by his son, William Giles Harding, in the 1840s. Belle Meade, which means
“beautiful meadow,” was once the site of a world-renowned thoroughbred horse
farm. Tours include the home and gardens as well as other historic buildings
on the property, including a dairy, stable, carriage house and log cabin.
Tickets include a free wine tasting at the Belle Meade Winery and the Harding
House restaurant is also located onsite.

• Find
  a campground nearby.