Jekyll, St. Simons & Sea Island Guide

Off the Georgia coast, a string of barrier islands called the Golden Isles has been the South’s genteel escape for over a century. Jekyll Island was once a private winter club so exclusive its members — Rockefellers, Morgans, Pulitzers — controlled a sixth of the world’s wealth; today it’s a state-owned park with a historic district, wide quiet beaches, and Driftwood Beach, where a whole forest of sun-bleached dead oaks lies dramatically on the sand. St. Simons has the lighthouse, the oaks, and the village; Sea Island is the five-star resort. Together they’re the soft, moss-and-marsh, slow-Southern coast.