Skip to site content
Group Travel Leader Group Travel Leader Group Travel Leader

Hail to the Chiefs in Georgia’s Presidential Pathways Region

Warm Springs was a healing retreat for Roosevelt, who first visited the area in 1924 in search of a cure for his polio-caused paralysis. The 88-degree spring waters didn’t cure him, but they did give him relief. He bought the property and founded the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. A year before he was elected, he built the Little White House as his personal retreat. He died there in 1945.

Today, groups can take guided tours through the carefully preserved home, see FDR’s 1938 Ford convertible with hand controls and listen to his “Fireside Chats” on a 1930s radio. Guests should also bring their bathing suits. Tickets to the house and museum include admission to the springs, where visitors can swim in the same pools as FDR did.

At the nearby 9,000-acre F.D. Roosevelt State Park, visitors will find several structures built by the Civilian Conversation Corps, one of FDR’s New Deal programs, including a stone swimming pool and Dowdell’s Knob, where he would take polio patients on picnics.

A couple miles south of FDR State Park, Callaway Resort and Gardens has two golf courses, a spa, a lake and 2,500 acres of woodland gardens. In addition to the 150-room lodge, the resort offers cottages, villas and the more affordable Mountain Creek Inn. Guests can rent bikes or a Callaway Cruiser, the resort’s four- and six-seat golf carts, to explore the forest, gardens and trails.

AMC’s wildly popular show “The Walking Dead” is filmed in Senoia. Tours include stops at the Alexandria Safe Zone and the Woodbury Shoppe, a store that sells official AMC souvenirs, clothing and accessories.

Columbus’ revitalized downtown sits on the Chattahoochee River, which doubles as the Georgia-Alabama border. There, groups will find a riverwalk, a man-made whitewater rafting course and “a zipline from Georgia to Alabama over the river,” Miller said.

Rachel Carter

Rachel Carter worked as a newspaper reporter for eight years and spent two years as an online news editor before launching her freelance career. She now writes for national meetings magazines and travel trade publications.