Statesboro calls itself “The city that soars.” They have a lot to be proud of. Statesboro is just a short drive from Savannah and Tybee Island, and three hours from Atlanta. It’s home to Georgia Southern University so you find some great attractions that are educational as well as fun.
Visitor Center
We started our trip at the Visitor Center. You can start with a selfie out front with Statesboro’s musical icon, Blind Willie McTell. Inside you can get more than travel guides and information. There is Museum On Main to learn about Bulloch County history.
Statesboro Farmers Market
If you’re there on Saturday, walk out behind the Visitor Center and visit the Farmers Market. It’s only two years old but this farmers’ market in a refurbished public warehouse is filled with local produce and crafts from April through November. There is a boardwalk and a beautiful trail behind the market, the Blind Willie McTell Trail, which leads to Triangle Park. It’s a perfect walking trail or biking route.
Georgia Southern Center for Wildlife Education
Georgia Southern Center for Wildlife Education and The Lamar Q Ball, Jr. Raptor Center lets you meet South Georgia wildlife up close. Inside there are some realistic exhibits of Georgia wildlife.
Steve Hein, Director of the Center for Wildlife Education, introduced us to some of the center’s reptile inhabitants and birds of prey. We got to hold a beautiful Burmese python. Steve introduced us to a Harris Hawk, the only bird of prey that hunts as a team. Susie Q flapped her wings for us. She is a 20-year-old Eurasian eagle-owl and a real beauty.
We visited Wetlands Preserve where we saw other birds in natural habitats. The duck pond was inhabited by numerous species. One duck had an aqua-blue marking where his bill began. Steve explained it had to do with mating.
At the back of the preserve, we met everyone’s favorite, Freedom, the rescued bald eagle who serves as GSU’s mascot. When Freedom was just a few weeks old, he fell from his nest in Maitland, Florida. Rescuers found him and brought him to the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. They weren’t sure he would survive, as he had an infection and a misshapen beak, probably caused by the fall. By the time he recovered from the infection, they knew the beak injury was irreversible, so they couldn’t release him into the wild. Georgia Southern University received permission to acquire him in 2004.
Georgia Southern University Museum
Dr. Brent Tharp, Director of Georgia Southern University Museum, led us through the museum. We began with fossils from prehistoric times. Did you know prehistoric whales had four limbs, almost like land mammals? A skeleton of a young Georgiscetus vogtlensis, a prehistoric ancestor of the whale, showed us how evolution chose the features that worked best for different creatures.
The next section delved into how people changed Georgia’s coastal plains. There’s a canoe once used by pre-Columbian people. It tells the story of how the white settlers and the natives, then called Creeks, interacted. The museum takes you through the era of slavery, the many kinds of industries from turpentine harvesting to oyster harvesting, and the effects on the people living here.
Read More: Best Dinosaur Museums in the US
Georgia Southern University Botanical Gardens
The Georgia Southern University Botanical Garden, originally called Garden Of the Coastal Plains, was the early twentieth-century farmstead of Dan and Catharine Bland. Their heart-of-pine home awaits you in the midst of the garden.
Weathervane Barn, where the Blands housed mules, is a step back into 1930s farm life. Each stall contains implements used in the production of cotton, tobacco, turpentine, and produce. A visit to the 19th-century Oak Grove one-room schoolhouse, once common in America, is an added treat.
They filled the many sections of the garden with flowery delights and edible plants. I saw the largest white hydrangea ever there. Pitcher plants are waiting for an unwitty bug to light on its slippery-sloped lips. You’ll wander among vegetable gardens, butterfly and hummingbird sections, native plants, and rare and exotic ones.
Blackwater Preserve
Kayaking at Blackwater Preserve is an amazing experience. It’s pristine, and the trail is only marked by occasional vintage tin signs posted on beautiful cypress trees. Occasionally you see a water bird or hear a songbird.
Splash in the Boro Water Park
Splash in the Boro Water Park has more than average water activities. One feature that draws people from all over southeast Georgia is its dual FlowRider. This is almost like surfing, but the “surfer” remains in place on a flowboard. It has a wave pool, slides, a kid’s pool play, and a lazy river.
The Clubhouse
The Clubhouse is a mixed-use entertainment complex that offers Coca-Cola 125 Raceway with electric go-carts, a mini-golf course, bowling lanes, an arcade, laser tag, a Ballocity indoor playground, as well as rental space for events.
Statesboro Art
Statesboro is not lacking in art. Averitt Center for the Arts is home to Emma Kelly Theater and Whitaker Black Box Theater. The center has art galleries and features traveling art exhibits. “The River People,” a set of five murals representing Native American History of the Archaic period from 2,000 to 4,000 years ago, is on the Whitaker Black Box Theater’s west side.
“The Fabulous Fifty of 1906” a mural, on Main Street next to City Hall, portrays the train arriving back in town on December 1, 1906, with the news that Statesboro would be the home of the district’s first Agricultural and Mechanical School. In 1990, that college became Georgia Southern University. Both murals were created by artists David Boatwright and Michael Kuffe.
Eagle Nation on Parade is a public art project of Georgia Southern University. The Eagles are a flock of human-sized fiberglass eagle sculptures. Each eagle has the same form but is painted with a unique design by different artists. The eagles are designed by Georgia Southern sculpture professor Marc Moulton and former student Daniel Todd.
There are ten so far around Bulloch County. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’m torn between one of the first and last. Farmers Market was one of the first three eagles. It was painted by artists Colleen Beyer and Wesley Stewart and shows local produce and agriculture. It’s a little confusing but “Farmer’s Market” Eagle is at Triangle Park in Downtown Statesboro on East Main Street.
The last eagle, “The City That Soars” unveiled March 2023, at the rear of the Visitors Center near the Farmers Market, is the most realistic with natural coloration by Jeff Garland, chair of the Art Department at Georgia Southern University. You can check out their flight path if you want to see them all.
Lodging
The Cottage at Cypress Lake
Instead of staying in a cookie-cutter-type hotel, try The Cottage at Cypress Lake. It’s on the lake and has two kayaks in case you want to paddle off from your private dock. The screened porch is a great spot to relax.
Dining choices
One fantastic dining option combines a historic site that has resident ghosts with home-cooked food. the current owner, Clay Beaver’s great-grandfather, built Beaver House in 1911. Clay not only cooks the best fried chicken but he will tell you about seeing family ghosts here.
There are two great barbecue restaurants, Uncle Shug’s BBQ and Dolan’s BBQ.
For more upscale dining try Bull and Barrel Steakhouse, which serves way more than steaks, or Taldoor and Tap, which serves traditional Indian food.
Vino 1910 is the place for the best fruit of the vines. Eagle Creek Brewing Company lets you see how craft beer is brewed. Besides food and beverages, they have live music, trivia night, and karaoke.
