2026 TravelBlazers

“The trends we’re seeing are visitors seeking authentic, local experiences they can immerse themselves in,” says Jay Markwalter, deputy commissioner of tourism for the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

It’s easy to overlook that Georgia’s tourism industry is the state’s second-largest economic engine, behind only agriculture. Tourism generates some $82 billion in annual economic impact and $5.1 billion in state and local taxes. Every year, it seems, Georgia tourism breaks its own records.

There’s a yin-and-yang relationship here, as communities lean into their long-established identities while calibrating what to offer the traveling public and how to pitch it.

“Our destinations are looking at the data and seeing what people want and what people travel to,” says Amanda Dyson-Thornton, president and CEO of the Georgia Association of Conventions & Visitors Bureaus. “And they’re taking that data and being very innovative with their ideas.”

The annual GACVB TravelBlazers awards recognize some of our state’s most creative destination projects and the leaders that brought them to life.

Madison: Out of Africa

Serengeti of the South: Georgia Safari Conservation Park encompasses 500 acres and includes animals like the Southern white rhinoceros. Photo credit: Georgia Safari Conservation Park

In late March, just as spring was settling in, visitors to Georgia Safari Conservation Park got to witness a spindly baby zebra less than a day old get chased by an ostrich across a field. It may sound like something you’d see in Africa, but this was in Madison – in Northeast Georgia. Not long after the park opened two years ago, Time magazine named it one of 2025’s “World’s Greatest Places.”

Room with a View: Guests who stay in the Giraffe Suite can look into the park’s 10,000-square-foot giraffe and rhino barn. Photo credit: Georgia Safari Conservation Park

Guests can stay overnight in the park’s tasteful Giraffe Suite, which offers an elegant bedroom and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the indoor home of three reticulated giraffes. Shy as they are, they still might wander over to peek inside.

The park’s safari tour – a bouncy, two-and-a-half-hour crawl across parts of some 500 acres that have come to be known as “the Serengeti of the South” – is open to anyone willing to make the trek to Madison. Bring binoculars to get a closer look at the eland watching from a shady stand of brush and its evolutionary cousin, a roan antelope known to punish lions that push their luck. The Ankole-Watusi, docile bovines with extravagant horns and seemingly not much to do, are prized in parts of Africa as symbols of wealth. As for the African white rhinos, Georgia’s red mud is the reason they are not so white.

Feeding Time: Visitors can also experience the animals’ feeding time. Photo credit: Georgia Safari Conservation Park

You’ll want to keep your eyes peeled from the decks of any of six luxury safari tents, as the view across that pasture is likely to yield something interesting. Imported from South Africa and arranged across a crest overlooking the zebras and whatever else might wander up, these comfy lodgings with sumptuous bedrooms defy the general notion of what might be a tent. Think coffee in the morning and cocktails at dusk overlooking this little Serengeti.

Given the research, financing, permits, construction, hiring of veterinary staff and others and everything else that went into making this happen, it’s easy to understand why it took more than a decade to get Georgia Safari Conservation Park off the ground.

It took the persistence of, perhaps first among others, Michael Conrads, whose family has owned this land for generations. A businessman and investor and now president of this improbable wildlife conservation enterprise, he wanted to bring something more to these rolling, forested fields than a golf course community.

“At the end of the day, we’re in the business of making memories that last a lifetime,” Conrads said via email. “And that’s a powerful motivator.”

Macon is Lighting Up the Holidays

During a yuletide visit to Bavaria in 2023, Karen Lambert became persuaded that an authentically European Christmas market would be a great fit for Macon, where she serves as president and CEO of the Peyton Anderson Foundation. The Anderson Foundation has played a prominent role in downtown Macon’s decade-long resurgence.

“I was just mesmerized by what I experienced in Germany,” she remembers. “It was Christmas on steroids. And I thought, you know, this is something that we can build here.”

Winter Wonderland: Last December, Macon hosted its first Marché de Noël: Macon Christmas Market, featuring holiday shops in European-style wooden chalets, above and below. Photo credits: Contributed

Lambert says she and other community leaders took the idea to Gary Wheat, president and CEO of Visit Macon, the town’s visitor attraction agency. Classy, not cheesy, they promised, on par with Macon’s signature Cherry Blossom Festival. Wheat jumped on board, and less than two years later, Macon last December hosted its inaugural Marché de Noël: Macon Christmas Market. In downtown Macon’s Cherry Street Plaza, chestnuts roasted over open fires, visitors sipped cinnamon-and-anise-spiced Glühwein and sampled sumptuous crepes while browsing holiday shops set up in tasteful wooden chalets. Choirs came a-caroling. Lambert believes Macon got it right again.

“Macon does these large-scale events extremely well,” she says. “And with the Christmas Market, we really started off with a bang.”

Wheat had embraced the idea as the perfect partner to Macon’s popular Christmas Light Extravaganza, which illuminates a section adjacent to Cherry Street Plaza with more than a million colorful bulbs each December. It also funnels some of its hundreds of thousands of guests each year into shops, restaurants and pubs nearby.

“What we really want to do is to blur the two,” Wheat says. “So, for us, the Christmas Market is strategic. It’s about trying to create new experiences to keep people longer and thus engage even more with our downtown merchants.”

One such merchant is Macon’s Fall Line Brewing, no stranger to hosting big events. Co-owner Kaitlynn Kressin was charged with the nuts and bolts of making the Christmas Market happen. Strolling among radiant, yuletide faces, she remembers, was both exhilarating and heartwarming.

“And what I appreciated most is that it drew in a different audience than we typically see in our urban core,” Kressin says. “We had people coming in who had never been to Macon, inquiring about the best places to eat and drink. To me, that’s what it’s all about.”

Kressin, Wheat and Lambert all believe that Marché de Noël will show out bigger and even better this December.

On the Road to Ellijay

Al Bongo, energetic at 85 and with a neatly cropped mane and subtle tan, is the unofficial mayor of Talona Ridge RV Resort in Gilmer County. Everyone seems to know him.

Bongo and his wife Jane play in the major leagues of RV nomads. Their full-time home is a Brinkley Z3100 “fifth wheel” RV that’s shiny white like the F-350 diesel that pulls it. They pass the winter months in Florida and spend spring and fall at Talona Ridge, which overlooks downtown Ellijay and farther out across a vast horizon of improbable mountain shapes and incoming weather. Summer will find them touring the West. It’s a lifestyle they adopted a decade ago after successful careers in business.

Upscale RV Park: Talona Ridge has mountain views and amenities like a heated pool and hot tub, event nights at Grandview Hall, a bar and grill, a flagstone patio with firepits and more, above and below. Photo credits: Contributed

“We’ve been to the finest RV parks in the country,” Bongo says, “and Talona Ridge is our No. 1.” Jane fully agrees.

High-end RV parks, those that draw the Bongos and owners of Prevost and Newmar RVs that can cost more than $1 million, are very much a thing. Open almost five years now, Talona Ridge has vaulted to the forefront of this phenomenon, having received extravagant props not just from the Bongos but from the RV community as a whole. RV LIFE, the movement’s megaphone, gave it a “Best of the Best” citation last year. Social media chatter has bordered on reverence.

The brains behind this is Wes Henderson. Having succeeded in residential development in and around Atlanta, Henderson decided that his future lay in the foothills. He moved to Gilmer County and bought 38 acres below the crest of Talona Mountain, not sure what he would do with them. He knew nothing of RV travel or the intricate RV networks. But the site and the data he collected, he recalls, “screamed” RV park. He overshot what he thought would be a $6 million investment by a lot, he says.

“I can’t stress enough how little RV experience we had getting into this. What we had to do to make it successful was to listen.”

What Bongo really loves are the amenities, especially event nights, bands and holidays at the soaring and elegant Grandview Hall, full bar in the corner. Out one door there’s an immaculate heated pool, hot tub and spacious flagstone patio with stylish deck chairs, and out the other door a manicured lawn that overlooks those mesmerizing mountains. Other amenities include a separate bar and grill, fitness center, pickleball courts, even a dog washing station and, of course, cornhole. And there’s Rosita, the nickname of a golf cart that a staff member drives around the property delivering margaritas.

The Bongos have come to know North Georgia. They might do some hiking or visit a vineyard or apple orchard or pop in for meals at their favorite haunts in Ellijay and Jasper, even Blue Ridge and distant Blairsville. Henderson says RVers add nearly $300 a day to the local economy.

How ‘Bout them Pups!

Kaitlyn Loyd is a firm believer that early exposure to art can stretch the horizons of youngsters. Loyd is associate curator of school, youth and family Programs at the venerable Georgia Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens.

Arts and Crafts: The Georgia Museum of Art partners with Pup Pass, a destination guide for families launched by Visit Athens. Photo credit: Contributed

“Art promotes critical thinking,” she says. “It’s thinking beyond right or wrong answers, developing a tolerance for ambiguity and being able to consider multiple perspectives.”

Activities include Toddler Tuesday at the museum and events for older kids. Photo credits: Contributed

The Georgia Museum is a partner in Pup Pass, a destination guide for families launched a year ago by Visit Athens, the region’s tourism marketing organization. The Pup Pass is a cornerstone of efforts to boost visitation during the summer months when most students are on break and the Dawgs aren’t playing.

“Our audience [includes] the UGA alumni who want their kids to see Athens,” says Katie Williams, executive director of Visit Athens. “Summer is travel season, so this is a chance for parents to bring their children to experience the nostalgia from the college and the town that helped shape them.”

Family Fun: Pup Pass helps parents find child-friendly activities like Art Story time at the museum. Photo credit: Contributed

A curated digital passport, Pup Pass identifies more than 20 child-friendly attractions, which also include the State Botanical Garden of Georgia on Milledge Avenue with its Alice H. Richards Children’s Garden. No surprise here but tracking data collected by Visit Athens shows Condor Chocolates Downtown to be among the most favored points on the Pup Pass map. Others include Active Climbing, an indoor rock-climbing gym, and TREEHOUSE Kid & Craft, a family-owned toy shop and art studio.

“Everybody knows downtown, but there are hidden gems sprinkled throughout Athens,” says Williams, who also says that she, as a parent, has leaned into the Pup Pass. “It’s a one-stop shop for everything in Athens that parents can do with their kids.”

Drinks on the Porch at Jekyll

For travelers who savor wildlife, solitary beach walks, bike rides among marshes, maritime forests and Golden Age mansions with their manicured lawns, Jekyll Island still nails it. Visitors revel in the peace, they say over and over. And yet, after the transformative debut more than a decade ago of the visitor-friendly Beach Village, even the most ardent Jekyll lovers have been known to comment that something was missing.

Unofficial Town Square: The District Shops include restaurants and stores, like Founders Social, above and below. Photo credit: Contributed

Exactly what that was might differ depending on who you asked, so the governing Jekyll Island Authority ventured to define it.

The JIA commissioned a visitor sentiment study in partnership with the Golden Isle Convention & Visitors Bureau that gathered data via an online survey. Feedback from some 40,000 respondents found that visitors loved Jekyll’s open spaces, conservation focus and lack of development but consistently noted a lack of dining options and evening activities.

Here, need met opportunity. Within the shadow of the majestic Jekyll Island Club, the underutilized Pier Road Shops begged for an upgrade. JIA invested a reported $200,000 in landscaping and other infrastructure improvements and invited in proven merchants, among them Sharon Clark, whose St. Simons Sweets is a hit on the island just north of Jekyll Island.

“I just knew I could make something fabulous here,” Clark told us.

Pier Road Outfitters at The District Shops. Photo credit: Contributed

Indeed, her family’s restaurant, Founders Social, open for a year now among the newly branded District Shops, has settled in as Jekyll’s unofficial town square. Offering up an assortment of beers, easy pub food and live music, open-air Founders Social has delivered a vibe.

“You feel like you’re in a picture while you’re here,” Clark says, “because I don’t think there’s anywhere else you can sit and drink beer that’s more beautiful than where we are.”

Clark also runs Jekyll Island Sweets in the District Shops, an offshoot of her confectionery on St. Simons. Wake Up Coffee, whose roots are in Brunswick, is another new gathering spot. Other additions include swanky Pier Road Outfitters and the Georgia Grown Signatures Shoppe, a curated selection of locally sourced goods.

“This project was about reinvigorating our treasured historic area with new experiences and renewed energy, while staying true to Jekyll Island’s character,” says Mark Williams, executive director of the Jekyll Island Authority, “From both an economic and experiential standpoint, the District Shops have absolutely been a success.”

Groceries and Goods: Among the attractions at District Shops is the Georgia Grown Signature Shoppe, which sells locally sourced products. Photo credit: Contributed