Collection Summary

The Georgia Traveler collection, an original production of Georgia Public Broadcasting, includes 40-plus digitized episodes of a weekly travel television series. Each 30-minute episode reveals the character of the Peach State. Just like the state’s Vidalia onion, each episode offers another sweet bite. The episodes were broadcast between 2009 and 2013 with host David Zelski and a crew of other colorful guides. Memorable episodes include tastes of a bacon peanut-butter burger; a wild, dusty off-road trek through the Durhamtown Plantation Sportsman’s Resort; and a ghostly stroll through Civil War battlefields and lush antebellum cemeteries. Viewers are also guided through the underground rum-smuggling tunnels of Savannah and hear tales from the mischievous childhood of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The series features ziplining fun through old canopy trees, glamorous mountain views and serene sunsets along Georgia’s Golden Isles. The series highlights what makes Georgia shine. You’ll laugh with Georgians at quirky festivals such as the Fire Ant Festival, the Mountain Moonshine Festival, and the Shrimp and Grits Festival. Watch the “live birth” of a Cabbage Patch Kid and take in a last meal after touring the Crime and Punishment Museum, where tourists have a proclivity to pose for photographs while sitting in a replica of an electric chair called, “Old Sparky.” There is something for all ages regardless of the episode that you choose to view. At the end of the journey, you will be left excitedly asking, “Where to next?”

Collection Background

Georgia Traveler is an excellent example of how this 63-year-old media network strives meet its mission “to create, produce, and distribute high quality programs and services that educate, inform, and entertain audiences and enrich the quality of their lives.” GPB is the public media network for the state of Georgia. It operates under the guidance and licensing of the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, an agency of the Georgia state government. This listener-supported network includes nine television stations and 19 radio stations. Its bandwidth covers the entire state of Georgia and includes sections of Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The contents of this special collection were digitized in 2022-2023 by Patrice Prevost, and funded by IMLS through the Public Broadcasting Preservation Fellowship.