September 12, 2026
Abbeville, South Carolina: The Town Where a Confederacy Began and Ended
Abbeville holds a heavy distinction: where the Confederacy was first cheered into being, and where, five years later, it quietly ended.
Weekly series
The Southern Town We Can't Stop Thinking About
A weekly love letter to one Southern town worth the drive.
Installments
September 6, 2026
The Lighthouses of the South, Part Three: The Screw-Pile Lights of the Sounds
The last leg of our lighthouse journey, into the quiet sounds where a stranger light once stood: a little house on iron screws over the water.
September 1, 2026
The Southern Town We Can't Stop Thinking About: Oxford, Mississippi
The students come back, the Square fills up, and Faulkner's ghost keeps a quiet house at the edge of town. This is Oxford, Mississippi.
August 29, 2026
Abingdon, Virginia: The Town That Traded Ham for Hamlet
In the far corner of Virginia sits a handsome mountain town whose famous theater once let farmers pay for a play with produce. It is still going.
August 23, 2026
The Lighthouses of the South, Part Two: The Gulf Coast
The second in our series on the beacons of the Southern coast. From Pensacola to Sanibel, the Gulf lights guard a flatter, trickier shore.
August 9, 2026
The Lighthouses of the South, Part One: The Atlantic Coast
The first in a series on the beacons of the Southern coast. Seven Atlantic towers built to keep ships off the shoals, and worth the climb.
Edenton, NC · August 4, 2026
Edenton, North Carolina: Where Women Told a King No
A quiet bay town that was North Carolina's first colonial capital, home to the state's oldest working courthouse and an early women's political protest.
August 1, 2026
Staunton, Virginia: The Town That Kept Its Face
In the Shenandoah Valley sits one of the finest Victorian downtowns in the South, a walkable little city that decided its old buildings were worth keeping.
July 26, 2026
The Great Southern Road Trip: Six Drives That Show You the Real South
Some of the South can only be understood from behind the wheel. These are six drives worth clearing a whole weekend for.
Berea, KY · July 25, 2026
Berea, Kentucky: The Town That Makes Things by Hand
A small Kentucky town organized around craft, anchored by a college where students earn a tuition-free education by learning the old Appalachian arts.
Cades Cove, TN · July 18, 2026
Cades Cove: The Valley That Was Kept
A mountain valley in the Smokies where a whole community was bought out and moved so the place could be saved, and their empty cabins and churches still stand.
Monroeville, AL · July 14, 2026
Monroeville, Alabama: The Town That Became a Book
A small Alabama town two childhood friends turned into American literature, where the courthouse from the most famous courtroom in fiction still stands.
Beaufort, SC · July 12, 2026
A Tale of Two Beauforts: North Carolina and South Carolina
Same spelling, two pronunciations, two souls. One Beaufort works the Atlantic tides, the other drowses under Lowcountry oaks.
Wetumpka, AL · July 7, 2026
Wetumpka, Alabama: The Town in the Crater
A central Alabama river town sits inside a five-mile meteor crater, where the Coosa still rumbles past a downtown that kept its footing.
Madison, GA · June 30, 2026
Madison, Georgia: The Town Too Pretty to Burn
A Georgia town with so much architecture still standing that walking it feels like stepping inside a question about what survives.
Leiper's Fork, TN · June 27, 2026
Leiper's Fork: The Village That Decided Not to Grow
Thirty minutes from one of America's fastest-growing cities, Leiper's Fork chose to stay what it was. Where Nashville goes to remember what it used to be.
Natchitoches, LA · June 23, 2026
The Southern Town We Can't Stop Thinking About: Natchitoches, Louisiana
The oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, where worn brick streets follow a river that stayed put, and the meat pies start arguments.
Apalachicola, FL · June 16, 2026
The Southern Town We Can't Stop Thinking About: Apalachicola
A small fishing town on Florida's Forgotten Coast, where the river still shapes daily life and the old oyster shucking houses still stand along the water.