Guidebooks are annoying. Just because some editor who doesn’t know me tells me which restaurant is the best or what attraction is a must-see doesn’t make it a must-see attraction. Sightseers’ Delight is dedicated to the weird, the quirky and the fun. After all, traveling is fun.
If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.
All of the places highlighted in this ever-growing database are great. Sightseers’ Delight has visited them all. We think you should make a point to see every one of them. But, this is not a guidebook. Just a webpage to help you plan your next adventure.
In November 2008, Athens dedicated “The Character of a Champion,” a 14-foot-tall bronze statue of Vince Dooley, the legendary former football coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. Athens sculptor Stan Mullins crafted the statue of Dooley, depicting the former coach being hoisted onto the shoulders of his players after winning the 1980 national championship. Dooley was head coach from 1964 until 1988. He was the university’s athletic director from 1979 to 2004 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994. The memorial was dedicated in 2008 before the annual Georgia-Georgia Tech football game.
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The State Botanical Garden of Georgia is a 313-acre botanical garden operated by the University of Georgia. The university established the garden in 1968 to study and appreciate plants and nature. This garden is a “living laboratory” for teaching, research, public service, and outreach missions for the university and Georgia residents. The garden features a conservatory, roughly five miles of nature trails and a diverse range of natural features and includes various plant communities and habitats that are common in the Georgia Piedmont region. In 1984, it was officially recognized as Georgia’s State Botanical Garden.
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The Arch was constructed in the 1850s as part of a larger iron fence protecting the university campus. It is generally regarded as the entrance to both the University of Georgia and the city of Athens. The Arch comprises three pillars representing Georgia’s state motto: “Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation.”
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The Georgia Museum of Art is located on the University of Georgia campus in Athens and has been the official art museum of the state of Georgia since 1982. It started in 1948 in the basement of the old library on the university’s North Campus. In April 1996, the museum opened a new building in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s East Campus. The museum has over 18,000 objects in its permanent collection, an increase from the core of 100 paintings museum founder Alfred Heber Holbrook donated. Its permanent collection includes American paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, American, European, and Asian works on paper, southern decorative arts, and Asian art.
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The Athens Music Walk of Fame, unveiled in 2020 in downtown Athens, highlights the artists, organizations and locations that helped make the Classic City’s music scene legendary. The Walk of Fame is located downtown near some of Athens’ most famous music venues, including the Georgia Theatre and the 40 Watt Club. In 2020, the Athens Music Walk of Fame inducted ten people in downtown Athens, and the Athens Music Walk of Fame Committee selects five inductees each year. The Athens Music Walk of Fame Committee, appointed by the mayor, considers artists’ contributions, historical significance, career span, musical style, and diversity representation. Local designer Allen Sutton designed the plaque. The walk is funded by the Athens Cultural Affairs Commission and supported by the Athens Downtown Development Authority, Athens-Clarke County Leisure Services Arts Division, and Athens-Clarke County Transportation and Public Works Streets & Drainage Division.
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The “Murmur Trestle” has for years attracted R.E.M. fans from around the globe. Gracing the back of the band’s 1983 album “Murmur,” the bridge is best known today as the Murmur Trestle. The trestle was built in 1883 and served the Georgia Railroad and later CSX Transportation and was last used in 1998. Athens-Clarke County purchased the trestle in 2000.
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The statue of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, stands outside the Classic Center and faces downtown Athens. The statue symbolizes the city’s namesake — Athens, Greece. On the base of the statue is the Athenian Oath, which the youth of ancient Athens took when they reached 17 years old. Around the pedestal, the words Wisdom, Learning, Arts, Athletics, Industry, Commerce, and Agriculture are inscribed. Jean Westmacott, an artist from the area, created the statue. The design was selected from submissions by Project Athena, a group formed in 1993 to promote public art in Athens.
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Located at the intersection of Finley and Dearing streets in Athens, Ga., The Tree that Owns Itself is an oak tree that has been willed to itself. As the story goes, in about 1890, UGA Professor William H. Jackson willed the oak tree and the land that surrounds it to the tree to protect it in perpetuity. While the original tree fell during a windstorm on Oct. 9, 1942, the oak that today stands at Finley and Dearing streets is actually an offspring of the original and is known as the Son of The Tree that Owns Itself. It was planted on Oct. 9, 1946, by the Junior Ladies Garden Club in the exact same spot.
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Hurricane Shoals Park is a public park near Commerce and Maysville, Georgia, that showcases exposed granite shoals along the North Oconee River. The park, spanning over 71.3 acres, officially opened to the public in 1978, but its history dates back to the 1780s. Early settlement began at the site, once a Creek and Cherokee Indian camping ground called Yamtrahoochee. Several buildings were constructed, including a fort, schoolhouse, grist mill, and Baptist church. There is a covered bridge that dates back to 1872, which spans across the North Oconee River. The Hurricane Shoals Park Association Inc. was formed in 1962 to protect the historic area as a recreational facility.
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The city of Arcade, Georgia, dedicated its Veterans Memorial during the city’s centennial celebration on Aug. 17, 2009. It honors everyone who fought for the country, including those in “the Gulf wars,” the Athens Banner-Herald reported.
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