Trip through the Southern States

Road trip to Miami for NYE '03! Includes Philadelphia, Chesapeake Bridge & Tunnel, Virginia Beach, Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine and Miami.

Quick Tips:

Use this as an itinerary or as suggestions for towns to visit, restaurants to dine at or bars to drink at.

Best Way To Get Around:

This is a driving trip. Get a decent car and ignore the speed limit (a tiny bit).

I spent a couple of nights here on a Rough Guides Journal recommendation. The place is hip, relaxed and cosmopolitan. They staff seem to be very helpful. The rooms are smart and trendy - if a little simple and spartan. The hotel is at a good location too - just at the northmost point of where all the action is on South Beach.

I did have a couple of problems:
*I tried to book 2 nights using the hotel's website and when I turned up I found out that I had booked one (yes, even my email confirmation said one - doh, but I swear I picked 2 nights on their Flash over-designed website!!) That mistake cost me an extra $60.
*The walls and ceilings are a little too thin. I complained four times one night at 2am about the noise upstairs and they only quietened down when I threatened to call 911 (OK, OK, I was tired and a little irritable).

Not in the 'centre of the historic district' as described but just at the northern point of it - which was fine, and I bet kept the price down ($89). Room was good and the staff very helpful re. restaurant recommendations and bike hire. Trash being collected outside at 6am was the only downer.

Slightly set back from the other Art Deco hotels, it is very peaceful, a short walk to the beach, a short walk down to South Beach where all the action takes place.

It has a great feel to it, with period furniture and decoration. Although clean and tidy, the rooms do feel a little 1936, though.

The courtyard is pleasant and the pool looked tempting (but was a little too cold).

Oh - P.S.: No double beds!! (Or that's what they told us New Year's Eve!)

We found this great locals' place when coming off the south part of the Chesapeake Bridge and Tunnel. Great value seafood - including she-crab stew. In the summer, it must be great with its deck out onto the marina.

A great place to try Southern cuisine. We started across the road at a microbrewery bar, then came in here and sat at the chef’s table overlooking the impressive kitchen – I had great steak and girlfriend had tuna that made me cry, it was so good (when it came back the second time, when she asked if they could cook it a bit).

Unfortunately - she was sick in the night and we could only point to the raw tuna she ate the first time around. (I had it when it came back.) We phoned the restaurant the next day and they were great and even offered to send us a voucher.

So - my recommendation is go - but make sure the seafood ain't raw!

We had dinner in the glorious Tap Tap restaurant on 5th Street, Haitian food in the most pretty restaurant I can remember. Resident Haitian artists have decorated this place with a celebration of their homeland's cultural images. The fish dishes were amazing and the atmosphere was simple but relaxed. I’d go every day if I lived there.

Don't be put off by the name - found on the pedestrianised Lincoln Road, we spent much of a NYE evening sitting at the bar watching the world go by - wondering where we were going to be at midnight. The sushi was fantastic, as were the Cuba Libras.

Deep inside Little Havana you can eat at a Cubanos hang out called Versailles. You can get there by car or taxi. Around you everyone will be speaking in Spanish apart from the American frat boys in the corner who've ordered far too much.

The food is varied, from sandwiches to huge entrees. Outside you can line up at their coffee window and get an espresso shot to help wake up.

This is a cool relaxed bar with a DJ. It's probably one of the more funky and less mainstream bars in the area. It's a locals' hangout. Tuesdays is Indie Night. The crowd is quite young, but I got carded (I'm 32), so I felt that I fit in ok!!

Take a walk up the marvelous Meridian Street from 5th Avenue up to Lincoln. It's a little off the beaten track, but it’s full of Art Deco places people live in. All recently renovated and gayly painted with pastels. Worth a venture! Note: Be on your guard at the south end of the street.

Take a drive through the city, past the skyscrapers, down the coast, and along the tree-darkened streets in Coconut Grove to spend some time on the small beach on Matheson Hammock County Park. It can be quiet.

Tip: Sit on a bench and look back over towards Miami and Miami Beach.

We left rather late on Saturday 27th December. Later than the 7am we had planned a few days earlier.

So we left Philadelphia just before 2pm and rushed towards Chesapeake Bridge and Tunnel along Interstate 13. Along the road we found rolling irrigation devices 100 feet wide towering above mile-wide farm fields. Silos formed mountain ranges in the distance.

We travelled from Pennsylvania through Delaware and Maryland. I felt quite at home as I passed Kent, Sussex, and Somerset counties but got confused when I noticed signs for Glasgow and Dover.

The sun came down and shone through the woods beside the road. We weren’t going to make the bridge in time for sunset. Mile-long flotillas of black birds flew across our path as the sky changed to orange. High above, passenger jets scratched the sky.

We made the bridge close to 6pm: 19 miles of bridge and tunnel. We looked out at the horizon as we drove alone on the bridge. It was beautiful: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain – a narrow band of all the colours of the rainbow stretched up into the sky above the faraway land.

The rest stop on the Bridge closed at 6pm – we pulled into a BP gas station on the other side in Virginia Beach and were recommended by a local to try out Chicks Oyster Shack – great seafood, local style – she-crab stew a speciality. We drank a beer at the bar and had a sneaky fag (as we legally could) and immediately felt sleepy.

No matter, from Virginia Beach we took the I58 to the I95 junction at Emporia. We drove on through the dark night – keeping up with the 80mph traffic. When we hit North Carolina we took a judgement call – we weren’t going to reach Charleston until 3am so we decided to stop the other side of the South Carolina border.

At the border we hit South of the Border. A large trashy service stop / shopping mall / fairground / neon monster. You get signs of South of the Border about 160 miles either side of the stop and Americans told me that you see so many signs that you expect an amazing place – but find it’s a shithole. Well, they never saw it when it was closed – it looked fantastic!

(You can read the trip in full at my blog if you want)

We woke up in South Carolina in a highway motel at 10am. I went to get coffees from the Swap Fox shack – you could tell you were in the south now. It was only 49° but you could feel the sun licking your skin.

The journey along the I95 took us past swamp, some cotton fields, and dense woodland. Here and there religious signs reminded you of Christmas – some were more in-your-face. My favourite was: "Wise Men Seek Him - The Offer Stands". Many important battles and events during the Civil War happened here in these states, and (after a little revision) I would love to return to look out across fields and imagine what happened.

We took the I26 off the highway to the charming and antique town of Charleston. I was amazed to find a town with so many old houses unspoilt ‘by progress’. The Lady and I checked in at The King Charles Best Western and we hired bikes from a store just north of the hotel on Meeting Street.

I can only describe our cycle as ‘a gay time’. We meandered along the streets looking with delight at all the houses, learning the history from the signs, looking out at Fort Sumter.

That evening we stopped off at a microbrewery bar on East Bay Street then had a fantastic meal at Slightly North of Broad Street. We sat at the chef’s table overlooking the kitchen – I had great steak and The Lady had Tuna that made me cry it was so good (when it came back the second time, when she asked if they could cook it a bit).

The waiter pointed us out to a British bar called ‘The Griffin’ around the corner – good Guinness but empty (he said it would fill up around 1am). We strolled home happy and merry.

(You can read the trip in full at my blog if you want)

I got up and enjoyed the free coffee and bagels at the Greenview then ‘gently’ pushed the Lady off the bed. We spent the rest of the morning enjoying the glorious sun by the pool in the sister hotel, The Albion, then went for a wander. We walked along South Beach and then went back inshore.

We walked up the marvellous Meridian Street from 5th Avenue up to Lincoln. A little off the beaten track, but it’s full of Art Deco places people live in. Worth a venture!

We had dinner in the glorious Tap Tap restaurant on 5th Street, Haitian food in the most pretty restaurant I can remember. Resident Haitian artists have decorated this place with a celebration of their homeland’s cultural images. The fish dishes were amazing and the atmosphere simple, but relaxed. I’d go every day if I lived there.

The Lady knew a couple of girls who lived in Miami proper and they drove into town to take us to some bars – we were dying to find something away from Ocean Drive. We basically went to New York – they took us the The Room, a sister bar to the small, comfy chain in New York. It was chilled, relaxed, played good music, and was fun.

From there, we moved onto Lounge 16, which holds indie night on Tuesdays. It seemed that the few and all of Miami’s art students and indie kids were hanging out here. It was the first time I felt old in ages, but I got carded at the bar and, with my rum and coke, I soon forgot.

We drove through the city, past the skyscrapers down the coast and along the tree darkened streets in Coconut Grove to spend the morning on small beach on Matheson Hammock County Park. It was quiet and we sat on a bench and looked back over towards Miami and Miami Beach.

We went back into Little Havana and ate at a local’s hang out called Versailles -- a real Cuban hangout. The Lady ordered in Spanish until she couldn’t quite figure out ‘Dark or white meat, madam?’. Outside, she lined up at their coffee window and got an espresso shot to wake her up.

Back on South Beach, we moved hotel to Indian Creek -- an aging but fun Art Deco hotel that once sat on the river (Indian Creek). We walked to the beach and spent the sunset walking up to the boardwalk past larger more modern hotels.

When it got dark, we got ready for a New Year’s Eve. With no real plan, we thought the easiest option would be to go to one of the grand hotels’ bars. When we asked at the Delano, they told us that tickets were $400 each! That’s just for a free bar. I didn’t think that I could get through 40 drinks to compensate. We drifted down to Espanola Way to a French bar we had seen, but it was closed. We walked back up to the pedestrianised, restuarantised Lincoln Road and I looked at my watch – it was 10pm. Something will turn up. I thought.

We sat in a good sushi restaurant with a bad name: World Resources Café. At the bar, we ate cold fish and ordered several Cuba Libres to pick us up. Were we really going to celebrate the coming of the new year with cold fish in between our chopsticks and a camp waiter to give us a hug??

The phone rang at 11pm – it was the Lady’s friend, Maria. She invited us to a party in Miami. We jumped in a cab and he radioed his mate and he refused to take us: it was in what the locals called ‘Crack Town’. We got in another taxi and the driver couldn’t understand why we didn’t want to go to one of the clubs here in South Beach. We begged him and we finally cranked over the bridge and cruised into a quiet part of the city. The Lady breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a line outside the 1 0 bar. We got in at 11.45, got out complimentary bubbly at 11.55, and by 12, we were in the courtyard watching the Miami fireworks explode above the palm trees, aware of the Spanish in our ears. It was a great night – a cool disco, a local but fun crowd, a great band, and cheap drinks. Perfect.

(You can read the trip in full at my blog if you want.)