In a new piece called “Where to Go in the South Now,” Garden & Gun author Mary Logan Bikoff had travel experts weigh in on “four buzzy — and perhaps surprising — destinations to visit this year” in the region.

What were the criteria for these picks, you ask? “Plush hotel openings, top-tier sporting events, new monuments, and even a bent for the bucolic are spurring the most talked-about vacation spots this year,” Bikoff writes. “We spoke with travel experts about four Southern locales to add to your list.”

Picks like Fort Worth, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky, did not surprise us. But we did not expect Kiawah River, South Carolina. And we were pleasantly surprised to see one of our own cities among the desired vacation destinations: Auburn, Alabama.

Under an embedded Instagram post from Lucy’s restaurant, Bikoff writes, “There’s an under-the-radar food revolution making this college town worth a visit beyond gameday weekends in the fall. (Maybe the university’s new culinary school, which opened in 2022, has something to do with it.)”

She quotes Birmingham-based luxury travel advisor Beth Flowers, who calls it “a sophisticated scene here” and asks, “Why does no one know about this?” Flowers then cites four-time James Beard Award semifinalist chef David Bancroft and his popular restaurant Acre, which she says paves the way for “contemporary restaurants like California-vibing bistro Lucy’s and the punny Chinese hotspot Irritable Bao.”

They also recommend staying at AAA five-diamond Laurel Hotel & Spa or “the English antique–laden Crenshaw Guest House.”

Each city’s blurb also has a bonus paragraph highlighting a “celebrity endorsement” or “souvenir.” For Auburn, they write that it’s “worth the drive” to check out the new and nearby (an hour away) Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery. “The seventeen-acre site of art and artifacts along the Alabama River is dedicated to the tens of thousands of enslaved people who were trafficked here—and honors the four million who were freed after the Civil War,” Bikoff writes.

Read the full Garden & Gun piece.

Auburn clearly has more to offer than its beloved football, basketball and other athletics. AL.com recently drove down to take in scenic Auburn University and its many monuments from coach and player statues to eagles forged in stone. But we also parked downtown and walked inside Toomer’s Drugs to sample the legendary lemonade.

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