Savannah to Charleston Round Trip Self Guided Audio Tour

For any nature lovers in the car, the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge is a must-see. It's a wonderful spot for enjoying unobstructed views of the Lowcountry.

Thanks to its proximity to Hilton Head Island and Savannah, the town's population has more than doubled in the last decade.

Indigenous Cusabo tribes occupied the Sea Islands for thousands of years before the first European colonists arrived in the 1500s.

Old Sheldon Church has been through a lot. Not only did it see two wars -- the Revolutionary War and the Civil War -- but it has also been burned to the ground. Scholars are still trying to determine whether the building has seen flames more than once.

The Harriet Tubman Bridge and Combahee River Ferry are part of the Reconstruction Era National Historic Park, a newly created national historic park that preserves sites important during the Reconstruction era, the period following the Civil War when the southern states were forced to end chattel slavery.

Walterboro is known for its signature red rocking chairs and front porches. The town was founded as a summer retreat for plantation owners. Back in the 1800s, plantations along the coasts were breeding grounds for malaria, so owners escaped to higher-elevation areas like Walterboro during the summer months that were less troubled by mosquitoes. Malaria was officially eradicated in the US by 1951, so there is no need to worry today; regardless, Walterboro is still popular with visitors today thanks to its small-town charm and front porch culture.

The ACE Basin is known for its tremendous wildlife diversity. Nearly 300 different species of birds have been spotted on the ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge so it's a bit of a bird lover's paradise. The refuge lies along the Atlantic Flyway -- a major flyway for migrating birds that starts in Greenland and travels along the Atlantic Coast to the Caribbean and South American countries.

South Carolina. During the Revolutionary War, Jacksonboro temporarily became the capital of South Carolina. That's because the British controlled Charleston, South Carolina's first capital, from 1780 until 1782.

There is one sight I recommend stopping for, though, and that's the ruins of the Pon Pon Chapel. Built around 1754, the Pon Pon Chapel was constructed along a busy stagecoach route that led from Charleston to Savannah. Locals sometimes refer to it as the Burnt Church since it burned in the early 1800s and was rebuilt. It was used for about a decade after that, then abandoned and left to ruin.

The Angel Oak Tree stands 65 feet tall and provides a shaded area of several thousand square feet. Some of the massive oaks branches sit on the ground and smaller trees have begun growing out of the tree's branches.

Today many visitors want to know where enslaved people lived at Drayton Hall. Surprisingly, the staff at Drayton Hall didn't always know. Thanks to the Bowens family, descendants of those who had been enslaved on the property, more clues exist through the oral histories they've shared. It was discovered that some people who worked inside the house lived in the cellar. George, a butler, Affy, who was thought to be a nanny, and Dumplin, a cook, resided in the home.

Now a South Carolina State Park, Charles Towne Landing has a live oak alley, gardens, and a mini-zoo with bears, otters, bison, and other wildlife that ran amok when the first settlers arrived. There's also a replica of a 17th-century vessel, bike rentals, and interpretive programming that can include cannon firings. The park is open daily, except on major holidays.

All you have to do is keep driving on Ashley River road for the next 10 minutes or so and just like before, I'll give us directions to the highway. We'll be taking a slightly different route than the way we came in, so just make sure to follow my cues to head back to our main tour route.

I want to point out a favorite point of interest among locals. Just ahead, we'll see a Coburg sign with a cow named Bessie and her calf. Once the marker for a dairy farm, Bessie, known as the Coburg cow, has been here for over 60 years.

South Carolina's biggest city, let me share a bit about its historical importance. As a port city, it played a major role in the slave trade -- nearly half of the people enslaved in America entered here. So, it's only fitting that Charleston also heard the first shots of the Civil War.