Join our adventure in the story links below. Discover how three college towns gave us three completely different experiences. Each campus showed us an array of southern charm and character, each with distinct qualities.

The pastel-colored University of South Carolina was warm and welcoming with a personalized approach. The classically inspired University of Georgia was secluded and elegant with centuries-old traditions. The stately red-brick University of Alabama was grand and expansive after an unexpected stormy adventure.

Campus visits help broaden views and determine priorities when considering a university. My family traveled for a week through South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama in the southern United States to visit each state’s most prominent public college. The trip allowed our boys to think beyond our own West Coast school culture, compare other learning environments, and consider more options.

Throughout our family tour, I soaked in the classical southern architecture, monuments, and green spaces—contrasted by a few impressive modern structures—unique to each college town that displayed each state’s southern flare. Federal, Neoclassical, and classically-inspired styles of stately antebellum (Latin: “before (civil) war”) period architecture preserve history with their huge columns, large entrances, and wrapping porches, built to create not only a grand statement but also shade during the hot and humid summer months.

Overall, we enjoyed each university for different reasons. At the end of our trip, we all thought about what particularly stood out in our minds. We compared the general atmosphere of each school and decided, in our collective opinion, which characteristic best described each campus.

Do you have a favorite travel story or memory you’d like to share? Please leave a comment below with your helpful thoughts, requests, or questions.