We’re baaaack! While I’m sure no one was on the edge of their seat waiting for a new post, I prefer to keep pretending that people actually read this blog and noticed our absence, haha. Or perhaps you are family or close friends who knew we were gone and are here to read all about our trip or scope out trip pictures. Either way, the Karpiuks took off for Savannah, GA for a spring break getaway last week and had a wonderful time.

Why Savannah? Well, in addition to it being a beautiful place that neither one of us had ever been to, and the ability to be on the coast, (more on that in a bit) Savannah is home to Lucas’ boss and the company that he works for. Going to Savannah meant that we got to spend some fun time with Brad and his wife Marie, who are a few weeks ahead of us on the pregnancy scene, AND take in the beautiful scenery. Traditionally we take a trip that involves staying in a bed and breakfast on the ocean for our wedding anniversary, but with baby Liam due just 9 days after our anniversary this year, we realized that spring break would be our last chance to take a little vacation alone so we decided to roll the oceanside bed and breakfast into the trip, too.

Savannah was beautiful. Breathtaking, even. We left after work on Thursday evening to start the approximately 12 hour drive and finished on Friday, getting into town on Friday evening. We took our time, and that became the theme of our week; taking our time. We relaxed, went at our own pace, and took the time to stop and take it all in. That’s HUGE for us.

One of the smartest things we did was go on a trolley tour of the city on our first day of exploration. This meant we got to see all of the important landmarks of Savannah’s historical district without having to navigate a map or do the driving ourselves. We went with the original Savannah trolley tour company, Old Town Trolley Tours. The neat thing about the tour was that our passes gave us all day on and off privileges between all of the 15 stops. So to start, we hopped on a trolley that took us to stop 1, and we had a graphical map that showed and listed what was at the stop. If you wanted to get off the trolley for awhile you could, and then when you were ready to pick back up with the tour you’d just hang out at the stop and another trolley would come along and pick you up in 5-10 minutes to go on to the next stop. So while you could stay on the trolley for all 15 stops start to finish and complete the tour in 90 minutes, the on and off privileges meant we got to spend more time at various places of interest that WE really wanted to check out further. The trolley drivers were incredibly nice and they did their own live narration as we drove, pointing things out or explaining the history behind a building we passed. Some were excellent storytellers and threw in humor, too. We picked up so many little tidbits about Savannah on the tour, and appreciated that each driver had their own style and truly seemed to be having fun, as opposed to tours with pre-recorded narrations. (I’m looking at you with the pre-recorded driving tour of Civil War battlefields on cassette from that road trip we took when I was in 6th grade, dad.)

One of our favorite things to do while in Savannah was hanging out in Forsyth Park. The weather was perfect, and Forsyth Park was a beautiful place to spread out on the grass in the shade of the trees and people watch or just relax. Lucas loved the 2 hours of free wi-fi available while in the park each day, and I took my Kindle and my knitting and worked on Liam’s baby blanket. We spent a lot of time lounging in the grass talking about the future or planning where we wanted to go for lunch or dinner. Lucas installed the Urban Spoon app on his phone and we created a joint urbanspoon.com account together, so he spent a fair amount of time finding us great places to eat. Check out our reviews to see where we ate and which places we enjoyed the most; the most memorable food for me was dinner at the 17 Hundred 90, Papillote, and beignets at Huey’s. (Though the rest of the food at Huey’s was average at best.)

After 4-5 days in Savannah, we spent the last couple days of our trip at Tybee Island at the oceanside DeSoto Bed & Breakfast. It was a refreshing way to sum up the trip with more relaxing and some sun soaking. Speaking of sun soaking, I soaked up a bit too much sun on my shins, which I apparently forgot to slather in SPF like the rest of my body. The burn made walking and getting comfortable to sleep at night unbearable and tear-inducing, and I’m STILL in pain as I write this post a day shy of a full week later. The good news is that I have begun to notice a little improvement today finally, and while Lucas got a little pinker than planned on our beach day, too, he thankfully didn’t suffer as badly. But you better believe we won’t forget SPF (especially our shins) next time.

We really loved Savannah and definitely want to make it a regular vacation spot, as long as we plan to visit in early spring or late fall so as to avoid the heat of the summer. End of March/first of April was a perfect, breezy 70-75 degrees and sunny for us just about every single day. The city is heavily influenced by its Savannah College of Art & Design population, and we appreciated being surrounded by the artsy inspiration everywhere we went. It was almost magical. But the best part? It was one more place to add to our list of new experiences together and we took the time to really relax.

It was also great that our drive had Knoxville, TN as the halfway point, which meant we got to stop and spend some time with our friends Kara and Jake (@teacher_geek and @JayneHatJake) which was an excellent way to finish the trip, even though I was feeling a bit burnt and miserable at the time! We enjoyed some delicious food and amazing company. Thanks for letting us crash on your couch, guys! <3

So now that you’ve read all about it (and trust me, there’s so much more I could talk about! Like the Old School Diner… wow.) I know why you’re really here… photos! Amirite? Thumbs from the gallery are below, or go check them all out on our Flickr!