Due South: Inside Georgia’s New Safari Park

Plus: Vivian Howard’s travel must-do and new Southern hotels

PHOTO: COURTESY OF GEORGIA SAFARI CONSERVATION PARK

Southern white rhinos at Georgia Safari Conservation Park.

While most drive-through wildlife parks draw small herds of children in minivans, a new safari experience in Madison, Georgia, is going after the grown-ups. Make a weekend of mingling with water buffalo, ostriches, and elands by staying in a luxury glamping tent or in the Giraffe Suite, where picture windows offer views of its namesake species. That doesn’t mean you can’t bring the kids for a day trip. Here’s what to expect if you visit the Georgia Safari Conservation Park.

TPC SAWGRASS AND SAWGRASS MARRIOTT GOLF RESORT & SPA

A HOLE-IN-ONE VACATION: To golfers, THE PLAYERS Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, is often considered “the gold standard” and one of the sport’s most prestigious tournaments. But you need not be an elite athlete to experience TPC Sawgrass. The iconic golf destination, just twelve miles from Jacksonville and twenty miles north of historic St. Augustine, is a must-visit for golf lovers and travel enthusiasts. Check in at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort & Spa to elevate your time on the links with luxury resort accommodations. Then treat yourself to a post-round spa visit, or enjoy access to the private Cabana Beach Club’s rooftop restaurant while you sip an Ocean Tide cocktail and ponder your next eighteen holes. Plan your TPC Sawgrass golf getaway.

Hyde Park, New York. A scenic three-hour train ride from Manhattan, this Hudson Valley haven is known for being home to the country’s rich and powerful, including Gilded Age surnames like Dinsmore, Langdon, Morgan, Vanderbilt, and of course, Roosevelt. But since the turn of the twenty-first century, it’s become a popular Upstate retreat for New Yorkers and out-of-state tourists alike.

Must-see museum: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum is packed with artifacts from some of the most pivotal moments in world history. Sit in a 1930s living room and listen to the Fireside Chats that bolstered a nation through the Great Depression, for example, or read correspondence from Albert Einstein about the atomic bomb. There’s also a nod to FDR’s “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia, where the president salved symptoms of polio and died in 1945.
One-of-a-kind walkway: Head a few minutes south of Hyde Park to Poughkeepsie and step out onto the Walkway Over the Hudson. This 1880s railroad bridge turned paved linear park lofts you 212 feet above the water and offers breathtaking views of the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and the Hudson Highlands.
Sake stop: Hyde Park is the unlikely home of Dassai Blue’s first American brewery, where the vaunted Japanese sake maker is breaking into the U.S. market. Take a tour of the world-class production facility, then sit for a flight of premium sake. And definitely try the new Dassai 35—the company’s first-ever sake made with 100 percent U.S. rice, grown at Isbell Family Farm in Central Arkansas.