I’ve dreamt of this trip since before I even had kids. My mom was my troop leader when I was in Girl Scouts and took us to Savannah when we were in 5th grade. I remember the friends and the funny travel experiences (like locking our keys in the car – twice) even now as an adult. Once I had a daughter I knew this was a trip I’d want to take with her when she was old enough. Thanks to the pandemic this trip was cancelled last year and we were so fortunate that our council opened up out of state travel for this summer. Our girls have slowly been saving for this trip for several years. Once they were in 3rd grade we began saving a few hundred dollars from cookie sales each year. We saved $300 for 3rd grade, $400 for 4th grade, and in 5th grade the girls worked extra hard to earn the rest of the money they needed for their trip that summer. Each girl had a goal of 500 boxes of cookies to sell during their 5th grade year so that we’d have enough money to do the trip. We had already made our hotel and train reservations before the pandemic hit but hadn’t made any other reservations. Fortunately all of the reservations were refunded and the girls had an extra year to save up for an even bigger experience in Savannah. I’m thankful for the extra year because it really allowed the girls to have the best trip ever and not have to skimp on every little detail. We still had a tight budget but we didn’t have to do extra fundraising outside of product sales (Fall and Cookie Sales).
A quick summary of our trip before we jump into the details. We have a group of 7 girls, 2 leaders, and parents (mothers only) who wanted to travel with their daughters. We also had one sibling (a Juliette Girl Scout) join us. We took the Amtrak train from Tampa to Savannah. The trip was a total of 5 days, two of those days were travel days and the other 3 were full days spent exploring Savannah. We did not rent a car or transportation in Savannah. We relied on walking, Ubers, and public transportation.
To make this post easier for people to find the information that you want I am including a table of contents here. Feel free to skip ahead and click to any section you want to review. Have questions? Leave a comment on this post or any of the accompanying pages and I’ll be happy to help. You can also email us at gstroop60809@gmail.com.
Table Of Contents
Part 1: COVID Travel
Part 2: Trip Planning
Part 3: Traveling With Parents
Part 4: Selecting Activities
Part 5: Traveling to Savannah (Amtrak Train)
Part 6: Hotel Review: Fairfield Inn and Suites
3-Day Savannah Agenda
Part 7: Day 1 Activities and Reviews
- Scavenger Hunt & Walking Tour
- City Market, Byrd’s Cookie Company, Riverstreet, Savannah Candy Kitchen
- Leopold’s Box Lunch & Ice Cream
- Telfair Square
- Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace Tour
- Tondee’s Tavern
- The Grave Tales Tour by Ghost City Tours
Part 8: Day 2 Activities and Reviews
- Girl Scout First Headquarter
- Soda Pop Shop
- Old Fort Jackson Militia Program
- Pirate’s House
Part 9: Day 3 Activities and Reviews
- Your Pie Pizza
- Pounce Cat Cafe
- Escape the Pirates Room at Escape Savannah, Forsyth Park
- Crystal Beer Parlor
Part 10: What to Wear
Part 11: Cell Phone Policy & Code of Conduct
Part 12: Budget & Actual Expenses
Part 13: Trip Binder & Travel Journal
Part 14: Resources, Spreadsheets, and Printables
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