Blake Guthrie

Spring culinary travel guide for the AJC.

High culture and deep spirituality. Both are found in many places in New York City, but two of the more popular spots lie along the same Manhattan thoroughfare less than 2 miles from each other. St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Metropolitan Museum of Art ...

Two law enforcement agents with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries eased up beside us in our 30-foot-long canoe, more curious than anything. Our small group was paddling along the eastern bank of the Mississippi River upstream from Vicksburg, Mississippi ...

I first visited Port St. Joe in the Florida Panhandle after my grandparents retired to Panama City Beach ...

Welcome to Fifty Grande’s Best of the U.S. Bucket List series. This is your one-stop travel guide to the best, most unique and quintessential experiences of a city, state or event. Want to know how to “do” the Athens, Georgia? We’ve got you covered.

A drop in the mercury combined with the golden hues of autumn spark something in a relationship that makes couples want to wander off together. Whether you and your significant other want to exchange bon mots with the glitterati in the big city or go off-the-grid in a treehouse overlooking a river, here are some suggestions for a romantic getaway ranging from the southern Caribbean to the Big Apple with plenty of idyllic spots in between.

THE SHORT VERSION
An Art Deco-era office building in soulful Macon, reconceptualized as a casual, free-spirited boutique

Scene
Even the locals hang out at downtown’s only boutique hotel

Hotel Forty Five opened in early 2022 as downtown Macon’s first boutique hotel in the historic core of this mid-sized Georgia city. Housed in an early-20th-century office building restored to its former Art Deco grandeur, it’s an eye-catching gem that embraces its history. Vintage elements such as terrazzo flo...

It was my girlfriend’s birthday and she wanted to go someplace she’d never been before. I said, “Try the kitchen.” [rimshot]. Okay, not really, but the classic Henny Youngman one-liner flows so naturally after being teed up like that. Instead, I said, “How about somewhere in the mountains?”

Scenic Highway 30A in the South Walton area of the Florida Panhandle has become more than just a dogleg route off of U.S. 98 connecting small beach communities; 30A is now a lifestyle as well as a study in contrasts. It’s casual but upscale, luxurious but low-rise, commercially developed yet surrounded by untouched natural beauty beyond the beach.

Roughly 40% of South Walton — the coastal region of Walton County between Choctawhatchee Bay and the Gulf of Mexico — is protected from development...

Situated on a sweeping horseshoe bend in the Alabama River, downtown Montgomery was once a major center of the domestic slave trade in the antebellum South. Enslaved people were transported on the river, unloaded at the dock, marched up Commerce Street and sold-off at the market on Court Square.
Today, there’s a beautiful circa-1885 fountain in the middle of Court Square adorned with frolicking figures from Greek mythology. Standing by the fountain and its soothing sounds of falling water, wi...

A recent study by the charity group Help Musicians UK surveyed the health and well-being of working musicians at all levels of the business. According to the results of the survey, mental health issues are a major concern among professional musicians. Over 60 percent of respondents reported dealing with serious psychological issues at some point in their career. And it's worse among musicians who tour on a regular basis. Touring is especially hard on independent acts.
It's not talked about of...

In 2004, I wrote this cover story for Creative Loafing, Atlanta's major newsweekly magazine at the time. The events covered in the story are back in the news again after the release of the popular Fight Night podcast series.

Below is the full corrected text of my original story, which you won't find on Creative Loafing's website because their link is faulty compared to the original print version.

I first heard about Daufuskie Island in 2015 from a regular at a dive bar in Savannah. He saddled up on a barstool after overhearing me ask the bartender for recommendations on what to do while in town. Instead of telling me about Savannah, the regular told me about a nearby island at the mouth of the Savannah River in South Carolina with no cars or traffic lights. My ears perked up.
You can only get there by boat, the man said. People get around by bicycle and golf cart. They live the simple...

[Story/interview from 2002. John Trudell passed away from cancer in 2015.]

John Trudell's resume boasts an impressive roster of celebrity endorsements from the likes of Amy Ray, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and Angelina Jolie (executive producer of Trudell's latest release, Bone Days) to name a few. When asked if he sometimes gets a little star-struck, Trudell says, "No, I'm too old for that, and too busy."

...
My father, normally a very gregarious man, was staying quiet and attentive. He’s always been an attentive person, too, but this was a more vigilant type of silent awareness. I suspect it was because he was trying to take in as much as possible, paying close attention to everything he saw and listening intently to everything said.
We were at Augusta National Golf Club for the Masters. So there’s that. You’re supposed to be quiet when golf is being played. But even when we were away from th...