Savannah is one of the few American cities where the lodging decision is a map decision, not a brand decision. The part of the Historic District that visitors actually want sits inside a rectangle about twenty blocks tall: Anderson Street at the south end, River Street at the north. Book inside that box and you will not need a car, a shuttle schedule, or a parking strategy. Book outside it and you will spend your trip solving logistics problems that other visitors never have to think about.
Key Takeaways
- The walkable core of Savannah runs from Anderson Street north to River Street. Nearly everything visitors come to see sits inside it.
- Most historic homes were built before cars existed and have no dedicated parking. Plan around that instead of fighting it.
- City garages run roughly $2 an hour or $12 a day. Affordable, but rarely necessary if you stay inside the box.
- The St. Patrick’s Day parade steps off at 10:15 a.m. at Abercorn and Gwinnett and works north through the Historic District — entirely inside the same box.
- On parade day, lodging on or near the route beats any hotel brand: a private bathroom, a place to drop your things, and a way out of the crowd.
- If a rental includes free off-street parking, take it. In this part of the city it is the rarest amenity there is.
- Rideshare, the free DOT shuttle, and your own feet cover everything else.
The Only Map That Matters: Anderson Street to River Street
“Historic District” is a loose term. The designated district is larger than the area guests actually use, which is why so many visitors book something technically downtown and then discover they are walking twenty-five minutes each way to dinner. The useful boundaries are tighter than the official ones.
The south line is Anderson Street, one block below the bottom edge of Forsyth Park. The north line is River Street. East to west, the practical edges are roughly East Broad Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Inside that rectangle you have James Oglethorpe’s 1733 grid: short blocks, shaded squares every few hundred feet, and a street plan that was designed for people on foot three centuries before anyone worried about a parking space.
From Anderson Street to River Street is about a mile and a half. That is a comfortable twenty-five to thirty minute walk with squares to rest in along the way, and most guests never make the full trip in one shot anyway. Push south of Anderson Street and that walk stops being a stroll and becomes a commute. Push north of River Street and you are in the water.
Twenty blocks, south to north. That rectangle is the entire lodging decision.
What sits inside the box
Forsyth Park and its fountain. Jones Street, which people fly in to photograph. Broughton Street for shopping and restaurants. City Market. Ellis, Johnson, Chippewa, Madison, Monterey, Lafayette, Wright, and Oglethorpe Squares. The Cathedral Basilica. The SCAD buildings. The riverfront and the Plant Riverside district. Nearly every restaurant, bar, tour departure point, and ghost walk meeting spot on your list is in here.
What sits outside the box, and needs a ride
Tybee Island is about eighteen miles east. Bonaventure Cemetery, Wormsloe Historic Site, the airport, and the Pooler shopping corridor all require a vehicle. That is four or five discrete trips across an entire vacation — which is an argument for rides, not for keeping a car parked for a week.
You Do Not Need a Car in Savannah
This is the single most useful thing a first-time visitor can hear, and almost no one says it plainly. Guests do not need to bring a car to Savannah. Fly in, take a ride from the airport, drop your bags, and walk. That is the whole plan.
Most historic homes in the district do not have parking. They were built between the 1790s and the 1890s on lots that never had driveways, on lanes that were designed for a horse and a delivery cart. The carriage houses that once held that traffic are now apartments and guest suites. Nothing about the housing stock was built to store a vehicle, and no amount of wishing changes it.
The good news is that parking is cheap when you do need it. City garages run about $2 an hour or $12 a day. That is not a prohibitive number. It is also a number you rarely have to pay if your lodging is in the right place. Four nights at $12 a day is $48 in garage fees — before the rental car, the gas, and the twenty minutes each way you spend moving the vehicle and finding it again. And once you have parked, you are going to walk anyway, because re-parking is worse than walking six blocks.
During the day, the free DOT shuttle loops the downtown area. In the evenings, the free Downtowner service covers the same territory. Rideshare fills every remaining gap, and you pay per trip instead of per day. Expect surge pricing on festival weekends and after last call, and plan accordingly.
Parking in Savannah is not expensive. It is unnecessary — which is a different and better problem to have.
If You Find Free Parking, Take It
Free parking inside this box is genuinely rare, and it is undervalued by almost every guest who is comparing listings on price and photos. If you are choosing between two comparable rentals and one includes a dedicated off-street space at no charge, book that one. It is worth more than an extra half-bath.
Two reasons. First, the money: $12 a day compounds quietly across a five-night stay, and event-weekend rates run higher than the standard schedule. Second, and more important, is the friction it removes. A guaranteed space means you never circle, never move the car at street-sweeping hour, and never lose an hour of your trip to a parking problem on the one day the garages fill up.
Be specific when you ask about it. Free parking in the Historic District usually means a space in a rear lane, a shared pad, or a deeded garage spot — and those lanes were laid out for carriages. Confirm the dimensions before you count on fitting a full-size SUV into one. A good manager will tell you the truth about this before you book rather than after you arrive.
For St. Patrick’s Day, the Parade Route Is the Whole Decision
Savannah runs one of the largest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the country, and for that week the lodging calculation changes completely. It stops being about square footage and starts being about your position relative to a single line on a map.
The parade steps off at 10:15 a.m. at the corner of Abercorn and Gwinnett Streets and works its way north through the Historic District along Abercorn, Broughton, Bull, and Bay. The squares along the way — Lafayette, Calhoun, Chippewa, Madison, Wright, Johnson, Oglethorpe, and Taylor among them — are where families set up, where the bleachers go, and where the crowd is thickest. The parade is traditionally held on March 17 unless the date falls on a Sunday.
Look at that route against the box described above and you will notice something: the entire parade runs inside it. Abercorn and Gwinnett sits just north of Forsyth Park. Bay Street is two blocks off the river. If you have booked inside the rectangle, you are already close. If you have booked on the route itself, you have bought yourself a materially different day.
What being on the route actually gets you
A bathroom. That is the honest answer, and everyone who has spent a St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah knows it. Public restrooms are limited, restaurant waits run long, and the portable options are what you would expect from a crowd that size. Being able to walk half a block back to your own unit is worth more on that day than any amenity a listing can advertise.
Beyond that: you can go back for a jacket when the morning stays cold, or sunscreen when it does not. You can drop the folding chairs and the cooler instead of carrying them for eight hours. Kids nap and come back out. Grandparents rest without the whole group having to leave. And you never touch a car — which matters, because streets close along the route, garages shift to event-day pricing, and towing begins overnight before the parade.
The tradeoff is honest: parade-week rates are the highest of the year and the best route-adjacent units book out further ahead than anything else on the calendar. If St. Patrick’s Day is the reason for the trip, that inventory should be reserved six to twelve months out. There is no late-breaking deal on the parade route.
On parade day, the amenity that matters most is a door you can walk through.
What Experienced Travelers Should Do
- Draw the box before you look at a single photo. Set your map filter to Anderson Street on the south and River Street on the north, then browse what is left. This eliminates most of the bad decisions before you make them.
- Check the actual address, not the neighborhood label. Plenty of listings advertise “Historic District” from well outside the walkable core. Pull the address, measure the walk to Broughton Street and to River Street, and look for under a mile in both directions.
- Treat free off-street parking as the tiebreaker that wins. Then confirm the space dimensions in writing before you plan a road trip around it.
- For St. Patrick’s week, book on the route or within two blocks of it, and book six to twelve months ahead. Everything else about that trip is downstream of this one choice.
- Skip the rental car unless Tybee Island, Bonaventure, or Wormsloe are on the itinerary — and if they are, rent for the one day you need it rather than the whole stay.
- Budget for rides instead of parking. Airport transfers plus a handful of trips outside the district will typically cost less than a multi-day rental plus garage fees, and none of it requires you to move a vehicle.
- Ask a local manager, not a platform filter. Someone who operates in this district every day can tell you which side of Forsyth a unit sits on, whether that lane fits your vehicle, and what the walk looks like at eleven at night.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best area to stay in Savannah?
The stretch of the Historic District between Anderson Street and River Street. It is the most walkable part of the city, it contains nearly every restaurant, square, and attraction visitors come for, and it removes the need for a car. Within that rectangle, anything within a few blocks of Bull Street or Abercorn Street puts you close to the center of everything.
Do I need a car in Savannah?
No. Guests staying inside the Historic District core can walk almost everywhere and use rideshare for the rest. A car becomes useful only for trips outside the district, such as Tybee Island, Bonaventure Cemetery, or Wormsloe. For those, a single day rental or a couple of rides costs less than parking a vehicle for a week.
How much does parking cost in downtown Savannah?
City garages run roughly $2 an hour or about $12 a day, with higher rates during major events such as St. Patrick’s Day weekend. It is not an expensive city to park in. The larger cost is the time spent moving and retrieving the vehicle in a district built before cars.
Is it worth staying on the St. Patrick’s Day parade route?
For most groups, yes. Route-adjacent lodging gives you a private bathroom, a place to store chairs and coolers, and the ability to step out of the crowd and come back. Rates are the highest of the year and the best units book six to twelve months ahead, so the decision has to be made early.
What time does the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade start and where does it go?
The parade steps off at 10:15 a.m. at Abercorn and Gwinnett Streets and moves north through the Historic District along Abercorn, Broughton, Bull, and Bay Streets, passing squares including Lafayette, Chippewa, Madison, Wright, and Johnson. It is traditionally held on March 17 unless the date falls on a Sunday.
Is Forsyth Park a good place to stay?
The north end of Forsyth is excellent, because you get the park at your door and remain within an easy walk of Broughton Street and the river. South of Anderson Street the walk to the north end of the district gets long enough that most guests end up driving or ordering a ride, which defeats the purpose of staying downtown.
Should I book a hotel or a vacation rental in Savannah?
It depends on the trip. Hotels make sense for one- or two-night stays where you want a front desk. Vacation rentals tend to win for groups, longer stays, and any trip built around an event, because you get separate bedrooms, a kitchen, laundry, and a private bathroom you can walk back to — which is worth a great deal during festival weekends.
Book Inside the Box
The reason to be deliberate about this is simple: the difference between a Savannah trip that works and one that does not is usually a six-block error made months earlier on a booking site. Get the location right and everything else about the trip gets easier.
Sid Was Here manages short-term rentals concentrated in this exact part of Savannah, and that concentration is deliberate. We manage where guests want to be, in the walkable stretch between Anderson Street and River Street, because two decades of operating in this market have made it very clear what people actually use once they arrive. If you want to see what is available inside the box, browse the direct booking site — and here is what booking direct actually saves you over the platforms.
Whatever you book, and whoever you book it with: draw the rectangle first. Your feet will thank you, and so will your parade day.
About the Author
Julie Gates is the founder of Sid Was Here, a Savannah, GA property management company operating short-term, long-term, and commercial rentals across the Historic District and the surrounding area. She is a licensed real estate broker and team leader of Team 912, an investor-focused real estate team, and has been investing in the Savannah market since 2004 — through the 2008 financial crisis, COVID-era dislocation, and the 2024–2025 short-term rental consolidation. Julie is a contributor to The 30-Day Stay (BiggerPockets, 2023) and to Forbes Business, and she hosts the Cashflow Savannah monthly investor meetup and podcast.
Contact: sid@sidwashere.com | (912) 525-0042 | sidwashere.com
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