GoCampingAmerica.com | Posted February
    3rd, 2016

    Southern Plantation Tours Take You
    Back to Another Era

    Happy Camper Blog

    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!

    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.

    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.