Savannah, GA – February 2016

March 31, 2016 · by mayne · in United States

After Charleston, we continued our winter tour of the south in Savannah. We assumed that there would not be as much to do in Savannah so we only stayed a week. In hindsight, we could have stayed a month or longer and enjoyed it just as much! We have moved the city to our shortlist of ones where we might want to buy property and live part of each year.

In general, it has also been nice to get into the swing of things with both work and travel, and to establish something of a routine while keeping a flexible schedule on a daily basis. In Savannah, we usually started the days with coffee and emails, followed by an hour or more walk with the dogs and lunch out somewhere. Then it is back home to drop off the dogs and take the car for a shopping/inventory sourcing trip or a visit to somewhere further out of town. We try to only eat one meal out a day and cook the other meal, so usually we are back home to cook dinner. For a couple weeks in a row were making one shipment to Amazon each week, so at least 3-4 evenings a week were spent listing products, prepping and packaging them for shipment. We have blown through a number of Netflix TV series in a row, but that’s not new for us!

I am going to say that historic Savannah is probably the best laid out, green and peaceful settings of any city in the states. Seemingly every other square is retained as a park, the architecture is colorful and beautiful and the people are friendly. Tourists and the stores that cater to them are common but only on the riverfront would I say that it is too noticeable as to be obtrusive.

Here are some scenes of the lovely parks…

Wonderful live oaks grace all the parks.

The azeleas were just starting to bloom during our visit.

Some more azeleas.

Nick enjoyed the parks too! There were many more squirrels than in Charleston to chase..

Forsyth park is the largest park in downtown and our favorite running spot – one loop was 1.5 miles I think.

Another view of Forsyth park.

A third view of Forsyth park

And the neat architecture..

We thought it innovative and resourceful that some of the streets in Savannah are paved with concrete mixed with oyster shells! A good sign of good food to come!

This is one of our favorite houses that we passed.

Another row of houses

This house is what we imagine Mayne’s mom would look like if she lived in Savannah (look at all those potted plants!)

Even the neighborhoods further out from downtown have wonderful, broad tree-lined avenues and beautiful flowers.

We stuck mainly to southern cooking and Savannah did not disappoint there! It’s a smaller city than Charleston so the international offerings were sparse, however.

Sweet potatoes café was our favorite restaurant, with an impressive claim to the best banana pudding ever! It was in fact pretty good..

Sweet potatoes café meal – the cream corn was probably the best.

We would drive an hour out of our way to go back to Back in the Day bakery.

Possibly Mayne’s favorite pie ever – blueberry cream cheese pie.

Another great aspect of Savannah is being right on the ocean. There are a number of great beaches within an hour drive or so, and plenty of options for water activities. We spent a day at Hilton Head where we had a very long jog/walk on the beach, seafood dinner and some product sourcing before returning for the evening.

Nick on the beach watching out for seagulls to chase

Nora in action chasing down birds. She has become increasingly less fearful of the surf!

The beaches are great off-leash options with the dogs, we just have to remind them who is in charge sometimes.

Nora likes to roll on the ground wherever she is. On the beach this often makes her back look like a powdered donut.

We are working out the kinks of working while traveling. In terms of the online business we are finding all sorts of new inventory, and having the van to transport everything is a huge help (thanks M&J!). It can get cramped to do both business and living in a small space (like the one in Charleston) so we are trying to filter future apartment rentals to at least 600 sq ft or more. I don’t have tax exemption outside of TN which also eats into our margins, but on the other hand being able to shop locally and then keep buying profitable inventory as we travel from one place of stay to another is a benefit.

Here is our weekly inventory shipment from Savannah. The weekly shipments are really starting to pay off and we have been able to fund our travels to date with the business alone!

Here is mostly all that we are bringing with us in the states. We will probably have to optimize the clothes are we travel further north

The pups are loving the travels as well as we are having them in tow! We have found people to be more friendly and approachable than while walking the dogs than without. Also, we have something other than the weather to talk about with strangers!