Brunswick, Georgia, sits on the mainland shore of the Golden Isles, a string of barrier islands along Georgia's southern coast that includes some of the most exclusive resort destinations in the American South. The city itself, founded in 1771 and laid out on a grid modeled on Savannah's, is a working port town with a shrimping fleet, a deep-water harbor, and a collection of Victorian-era neighborhoods that are slowly being rediscovered by travelers who venture beyond the better-known islands. The Old Town Historic District, centered on the massive Lover's Oak—a live oak tree estimated to be over 900 years old—preserves the architecture and atmosphere of a nineteenth-century coastal Georgia town.
Brunswick's identity is intertwined with its waterfront and the surrounding marshlands. The Marshes of Glynn, immortalized by the poet Sidney Lanier in his 1878 poem, stretch along the mainland's edge in a vast expanse of golden-green cordgrass that teems with life—herons, egrets, fiddler crabs, and the shrimp that sustain the city's fishing industry. The Sidney Lanier Bridge, a cable-stayed span that arcs over the Brunswick River, has become a modern landmark, its white cables visible for miles across the flat coastal landscape. The working waterfront at Mary Ross Park provides front-row seating for watching the shrimping fleet come and go, their nets drying in the warm coastal air.
The cuisine of Brunswick is defined by two things: shrimp and Brunswick stew. The city claims to be the birthplace of Brunswick stew—a thick, tomato-based concoction of meat (traditionally squirrel or rabbit, now chicken and pork), corn, lima beans, and potatoes—and a massive iron pot on the waterfront, supposedly the very vessel in which the stew was first cooked in 1898, commemorates the claim. Fresh Georgia shrimp, caught by the local fleet, is served in every conceivable preparation—boiled, fried, grilled, and in the creamy shrimp and grits that is the Lowcountry's contribution to American gastronomy. The craft brewery and restaurant scene in the downtown district has grown in recent years, bringing contemporary dining to the historic streetscape.
The Golden Isles—St. Simons Island, Sea Island, Jekyll Island, and Little St. Simons Island—are Brunswick's primary attraction. St. Simons, connected to the mainland by a causeway, offers the lighthouse, Fort Frederica (a British colonial fortification from 1736), and under the live-oak canopy of Christ Church, one of the most peaceful churchyards in the South. Jekyll Island, once the winter retreat of the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Morgans (the Federal Reserve was secretly conceived at the Jekyll Island Club in 1910), preserves their "cottages" (mansions) as a historic district and provides ten miles of undeveloped beach. Sea Island, the most exclusive of the group, has hosted G8 summits and offers one of the finest resort experiences in the country. Little St. Simons, accessible only by boat, is a private 11,000-acre wilderness island limited to thirty-two guests at a time.
Brunswick serves as the mainland gateway to the Golden Isles and is accessible as a port of call for Atlantic coast cruises. The best time to visit is March through May and September through November, when temperatures are comfortable and the humidity less oppressive than in summer. The shrimp season peaks in late summer and early fall, making autumn an ideal time for seafood lovers. Winter is mild and quiet, with excellent birdwatching in the coastal marshes.