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AMERICA

Georgia on my mind: a trip to the US’s Deep South

Josh Glancy swaps claustrophobic Washington for a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains

Lake Chatuge, near Hiawassee
Lake Chatuge, near Hiawassee
SEAN PAVONE
The Sunday Times

After four cramped and anxious months cooped up in a Washington flat, I’ve rarely craved the release of a holiday more. My girlfriend and I chose the most remote, most conservative, least virus-stricken corner of America that we could feasibly drive to: the North Georgia mountains. We hoped this unknown terrain might act as a much-needed escape valve.

We ended up in Blue Ridge, an old mining stop turned destination town that abuts the beginning of the Appalachian Trail, which runs to Maine via 13 other states. This is the America where, to misquote Barack Obama, people cling to God, guns and brisket, and every third building is a hokey Southern Baptist church, a barbecue shack or a juicy peach stall.

The North Georgia mountains are a place to hike, cycle, sail, swim, raft, grill and drink, preferably in that order. To sit on the deck of your cabin and absorb salmon-coloured sunsets with a cold apple cider, or blitz around lakes on a pontoon boat trailing desperate tubers in your wake. To drive a tank, catch a fish, shoot a gun, spot a bear, save your soul and experience that mythical “real” America you may have seen on Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends or read about from JD Vance but never quite braved yourself. It’s a giant adults’ playground just two hours north of the world’s busiest passenger airport, Atlanta’s Hartfield-Jackson. North Georgia won’t be for everyone, but if you like your holidays bucolic and spiked with a dose of moonshine, then give it a go.

Blue Ridge Lake
Blue Ridge Lake
RALPH DANIEL

It’s pretty affordable too. After a long confinement, our pod of six decided to treat ourselves to the most decadent cabin we could find: a four-bedroom, two-storey cavern perched on the edge of a nameless mountain outside of Blue Ridge, with wraparound decks, an alfresco fireplace and a commodious hot tub perfect for a sundowner or three (afternoons can be misty in the mountains, but the sunsets are pellucid). We used Mountain Top Cabin Rentals, whose properties are tastefully renovated with the bare minimum of taxidermy.

It was suggested to me, before embarking on the long drive to Blue Ridge, that our escape to Appalachia was a little, well, random. Other, ritzier friends were summering and sheltering in the Hamptons, or on Nantucket, or along the coast of Maine, which all sounded perfectly charming and perfectly predictable. Sometimes, though, particularly at the moment, I think, it’s appealing to visit a place you will never see pop up on the Instagram circuit, and in this case to experience an America that’s as foreign to most of my friends in DC and New York as it was to our crew of wide-eyed Brits. That’s North Georgia.

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We spent the first couple of days exploring the town of Blue Ridge itself, which is a rare success story in a generally downtrodden region. Some 22 years ago a local entrepreneur restarted the town’s old mining train as a scenic railway running from Blue Ridge through the Appalachian foothills all the way to Copperhill, just over the border in Tennessee. What came next were tourists and wealthy weekenders from Atlanta, Chattanooga and beyond.

Restaurants, bars and luxury cabins followed and the town now resembles something akin to Swanage or Ambleside, remaining just the right side of touristy, mixing bluegrass bars and southern cafés with chichi wine stores and a first-rate second-hand bookshop. There I picked up England and the English by Price Collier, one of those self-serious early-20th-century travelogues written by an Ivy League flâneur on a posh interrailing trip.

The Blue Ridge Mountains at sunset
The Blue Ridge Mountains at sunset
SEAN PAVONE

“Are the English dull?” asked one particularly whimsical chapter. (Answer: No, apparently. Our stolid nature is redeemed by a “highly developed sense of humour”.)

In the rural South, sticking to local delicacies is your best gastronomic bet. I’d travel most of the miles back to Blue Ridge for another plate of the shrimp and grits at Harvest on Main, and the rest of the way for another dose of the biscuits with apple butter and fried green tomatoes at Southern Charm. The best dinners, though, took place on our candlelit terrace, perched on the mountainside overlooking North Carolina, where we made our own foray into slow-cooked ribs and successfully pulled off a crawfish boil, which involves pouring a vast pile of steaming crawdaddies straight on to the newspaper-clad table, along with corn-on-the-cob, potatoes, Andouille sausage and a heap of cayenne pepper. The boil is about as visceral as eating gets, leaving you melting in a satisfied puddle of sweat, spice and corn husks.

Fannin County, in which the town of Blue Ridge is situated, is a place of intense faith and was entirely “dry” until a few years ago, meaning you couldn’t buy alcohol at a store. But don’t let that deceive you into expecting a sober holiday. From Grandaddy Mimm’s 140-proof “mule kickin’” corn whiskey (don’t expect to function the next day) to the sandpaper-dry cider at Mercier Orchards, the drinking is just as fervent as the praying here. Another essential stop is the Grumpy Old Men brewery, where one can happily while away a long afternoon savouring its lethal Grasshoppa IPA. Less appealing, however, is the local wine. I loved the idea of visiting an Appalachian vineyard, but after trying a couple of recent vintages (blackberry, peach, apple, all the fruits), I discreetly found my way back to the brewery.

The Scenic Solitude cabin, near Blue Ridge in Georgia, from Mountain Top Cabin Rentals
The Scenic Solitude cabin, near Blue Ridge in Georgia, from Mountain Top Cabin Rentals

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Once we’d exhausted the pleasures of Blue Ridge, we wandered further afield, hiking Springer Mountain (3,780ft), the first peak on the Appalachian trail, and talking idly of conquering the track’s entire 2,190 miles. Instead we got enticed by one of the few road signs not advertising Jesus or tactical weaponry and ended up at Tank Town USA, motto: Drive Tanks. Crush Cars. (And, for extra kicks, fire a machinegun too.)

Arriving at this Appalachian Disney, I was somewhat crudely expecting a rusting Sherman tank and a surfeit of Team America-style machismo. Instead we met the thoughtful owner, Todd, a merchant navy veteran with a penchant for 1960s British armoured personnel carriers and a surprisingly international clientele.

Up before us for the “crush a car with your tank” experience was a wealthy German family from Miami, whose summer trip to a French château had been cancelled because of the ’rona. Once he’d finished drone-filming his sullen teenage kids obliterate a rusty Ford, Alex meandered over for a chat. “It must be fun to get your hands on a real British tank,” he ventured gamely. We bit our tongues.

It’s worth noting for a moment that it’s not all fun and fly-fishing in Fannin County. Blue Ridge may have come up in the world, but the surrounding countryside is still poor, ravaged by drug addiction and pervasive economic malaise. The profusion of Confederate flags in the area is a stark reminder of the darker historical currents that flow through this region. Fannin favoured the Union during the American Civil War, but now the rebel cross flies all over the county, an act of southern defiance and, all too often, racial tribalism. The locals are friendly, but a little suspicious. I quickly learnt to tell them I grew up in Britain, where many had ancestors, rather than share my present home, Washington, which might as well be Gomorrah.

After the triumph of Tank Town, and yearning for yet more horsepower, we drove to Hiawassee and took a speedboat out on Lake Chatuge. It’s taken me a few years to realise it, but lakes and lake life are really America’s hidden superpower, the perfect expression of this nation’s unparalleled ability to bend nature to its will. The decks, boats, piers and pontoons, the flotillas of teenagers getting steaming drunk in the coves, the wakeboarders and jet skis ripping across the waves, the quaint cabins and hulking McMansions dotted along the shore: Chatuge on a sunlit Saturday is a near-flawless day out. It ended with fried pickles and a yardbird sandwich at the Marina Station, watching one last sunset over the lake and listening to a guitar minstrel sink his soul into Old Crow Medicine Show’s perennial Wagon Wheel. I’ve rarely felt more content.

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For all its eccentricities, I’ve found myself pining for North Georgia in recent weeks. Twelve days there was a voyage that genuinely took me outside of myself, outside of suffocating, mask-haunted DC, beyond the genteel cosmopolitan bubble and into a strange and fortifying land.

Josh Glancy was a guest of Explore Georgia (exploregeorgia.org). Mountain Top Cabin Rentals offers cabins from £158 a night (mountaintopcabinrentals.com). Virgin Atlantic flies to Atlanta (virginatlantic.com)

Travelling to the USA: what you need to know

Can we visit for a holiday?
There were 14,000 flights between London and New York alone in 2019, but when Donald Trump shut the door on British tourists on March 16, that fell to close to zero. Not only does the Foreign Office advise against all non-essential travel, but the US authorities make it clear that British nationals — and anyone who has been to the UK, Ireland, the Schengen zone, Iran, Brazil or China within the previous 14 days — will not be permitted entry.

When will that change?
The best hope, says Jonathan Sloan of Visit USA, is the opening of a travel corridor between London and New York. Intended to expedite business travel, it could also be used for that shopping trip on 5th Avenue and onward travel within America. “The launch of a New York corridor would be likely to lead to the opening of routes to other cities,” Sloan said.

Will the US election help?
A Biden win is unlikely to bring about change: the Democrat candidate has been quiet on the matter, but his campaign manager said in April that he “supports travel bans guided by medical experts”.

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Are holidays on sale for 2021?
Virgin Holidays has February half-term breaks in Orlando from £621pp. Other US specialists such as Trailfinders, American Sky and Kuoni are taking bookings, but since all departures are dependent on the lifting of restrictions you should book a package holiday with an Atol-bonded tour operator and double-check the guarantee.
Chris Haslam

What’s your favourite part of the USA? Tell us in the comments below