Tours that include Wormsloe: there is exactly one
What the one tour actually covers
The Bonaventure Cemetery & Wormsloe State Historic Site Tour costs from $59, is rated 4.8 from 285 reviews and runs about six hours with transport from Savannah included. Two stops carry it: Bonaventure, which is the famous one, and Wormsloe, which is the one people misunderstand. A lunch stop features in the reviews — barb named the Driftwood Cafe in hers — and reviewers name their guides more often than they name anything else. Pam: “Dennis was our guide and along with being very knowledgeable about the places we visited, he also made it very fun!” Reviewers spell him both Dennis and Denis; Albert, Joyce and Ashley come up warmly too.
Here is the part I would want told to me before booking. The guide cannot take you into Wormsloe House, because nobody can: it is private property, occupied by descendants of Noble Jones, and it is closed to visitors full stop. What you get inside the gate is the 1.5-mile avenue of live oaks, the tabby ruins of Noble Jones’s fortified house, the museum, the colonial life area and the family burial ground. That is a good hour or two of history, told properly, and it is not a mansion tour. Wormsloe was also a place where enslaved people were held and forced to work, and in the nineteenth century Jones’s heirs used enslaved labour to grow cotton here; a guide worth $59 says that out loud (the plain version).
What works
- Transport from Savannah is included, so nobody in your party is driving
- It covers Bonaventure Cemetery as well, which is the pairing most visitors want
- 285 reviews is a real base to judge by, and it sits at 4.8
- Guides are named by name in review after review, which is rarer than it sounds
- Somebody explains the tabby ruins, which otherwise look like low grey walls
Worth knowing
- About six hours is most of a day, and Wormsloe is one part of it
- No tour can get you inside Wormsloe House — it is a private residence
- You are on somebody else’s clock at the site, not the 10 a.m. light you chose
- One reviewer, Tom, put it plainly: “The bus could use some work, it doesn’t like bumps in the road.”
- If you only want the avenue photograph, this is a lot of day for one shot
If you drive yourself: what to pair with the day
This is the honest other half of the category. Buy the gate ticket, drive out, and spend the rest of the day on a Savannah tour that never claims to go near Wormsloe. Georgia State Parks lists adult admission at $12 at the time of writing, with lower rates for seniors, youth and small children, and the gate runs 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. daily; those figures and the online-ticket rules are the state’s to change, so confirm at gastateparks.org. Then pick one of these four, knowing what each is:
The trolley, $46, rated 4.7 from 1,862 reviews, for getting your bearings downtown before or after the drive. The stay-on-the-bus overview, $35, rated 4.6 from 997 reviews, if you want the same orientation cheaper and narrated end to end. The Bonaventure golf cart tour, $38, rated 4.9 from 256 reviews, if you want the cemetery without walking it in the heat. The private tour, $175, rated 5.0 from 6 reviews, if you want a guide to yourselves for the districts and the Isle of Hope area — and remember that a 5.0 built on 6 reviews tells you very little.
Most reviewedSavannah: Old Town Hop-On Hop-Off Trolley Tour
Cheapest city tourSavannah: Old Savannah Tours Historic Overview
Best ratedSavannah: Bonaventure Cemetery Golf Cart Guided Tour
Private guideSavannah: Historic Districts & Bonaventure Private Tour
If you are driving out yourself, go first and go early. The site is quiet at 10 a.m. and packed by half past twelve on a Saturday, and no city tour you book for the afternoon is affected by what time you leave the Isle of Hope. Doing it the other way round puts you on the avenue at the worst hour for photographs — photographing the avenue.
So which is it
If you want Wormsloe explained and would rather not drive, there is one tour and it is the one above. If you want the avenue to yourself at opening, drive, and put your tour money into a Savannah afternoon instead. Both are reasonable; only one of them is a tour that goes there. All five products sit side by side on the comparison hub, the money side is at tour prices, and what the reviewers actually said — including the man who still wished he could tour the house — is at the flagship review.
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Frequently asked questions
How many tours include Wormsloe Historic Site?
One bookable tour drives into the site: the Bonaventure Cemetery & Wormsloe State Historic Site Tour, from $59, rated 4.8 from 285 reviews, about six hours with transport from Savannah. Every other Savannah tour I list stays in town, and I would rather say that than pad the page — all five compared.
Does the Wormsloe tour include the gate admission?
The listing includes transport from Savannah and the guide, and any site admission it covers is shown on the booking page, so check the inclusions before you pay rather than after. If you are driving yourself instead, admission is Georgia State Parks’ business and is published on their site — the age tiers, explained.
Will a guided tour get me inside the Wormsloe house?
No, and neither will anything else. Wormsloe House is private property, still occupied by descendants of Noble Jones, visible from the avenue and closed to visitors. What any tour shows you is the oak avenue, the tabby ruins, the museum, the colonial life area and the burial ground — what is actually there.
Is it better to take the tour or drive to Wormsloe myself?
Drive if you want the avenue at 10 a.m. with nobody in your photographs, and if you are happy reading the interpretive panels yourself. Take the tour if you want the history told to you, Bonaventure in the same day, and no responsibility for the driving. Neither is the cheap option by accident — the costs, side by side.