Bonaventure Cemetery Golf Cart Guided Tour

The $38 per person ticket buys a one-hour guided ride in a golf cart through Bonaventure Cemetery with a small group capped at 10 participants. The guide narrates the history of the cemetery and the stories of its residents as you roll past the most ornate graves. Because the group is small, the listing promises plenty of time to ask questions, which is the main practical advantage over the big bus and trolley formats in town.

What is included and what is not

• Guided golf cart tour of Bonaventure Cemetery lasting one hour
• A driver-guide narrating history, lore and the stories of those buried
• Small group of no more than 10 participants
• Tour conducted in English
• Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start
• Not included: transport to the cemetery

The rules are short. Smoking is not allowed. Infants must sit on laps and children of all ages can join, making this one of the easiest listings in the catalog for mixed-age families.

Most travellers can participate, since the whole outing is seated.

Bonaventure sits on a bluff over the Wilmington River southeast of downtown, on 160 acres that have served as a cemetery since 1846. The city has owned it since 1907. It is open daily from 8 am to 5 pm and entry is free, which matters if you would rather wander on your own than join a tour.

Its size is the reason the golf cart format exists. Walking the grounds in the Savannah heat is a workout, and travellers consistently praise the carts for covering more of the grounds with less effort. The cemetery is also a pop-culture landmark.

The Bird Girl statue, famous from the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, stood here until 1997, when it moved to the Telfair Museums. You will not see it on this tour.

Daytime history, not a night ghost walk

Set expectations correctly before you book. This is a daylight tour about history, sculpture and the people buried here. It is not a lantern-lit ghost walk and it does not trade on scares.

Travellers who want the spooky version of Savannah should look at the evening listings in the comparison instead, starting with the Dead of Night Adults-Only Ghost Walking Tour.

The cemetery is run by the City of Savannah; check current hours and rules on the City of Savannah website before you drive out.

The tour includes the graves of songwriter Johnny Mercer and poet and novelist Conrad Aiken. The listing also promises the most ornate graves on the grounds, which is the real draw of Bonaventure. Monuments and moss-draped oaks line the bluff over the river, and guides tell the stories of the people beneath them.

One famous resident you may hear about is Little Gracie Watson, a child whose grave is marked by a famous statue. Guides share the history and lore of the residents as they drive, and travellers praise the storytelling as engaging and knowledgeable. Everything is presented as history and story rather than staged fright, which is exactly why families and history-minded visitors rate this listing so highly.

There is no hotel pickup and no meeting point downtown. Bonaventure lies outside the Historic District, so you need your own way to get there. This is the single biggest planning item for this tour and worth sorting out before you book a slot.

Finding the meeting point

Drive into the cemetery and take the second left, which is Mullryne Way. Follow that road all the way to the visitor parking lot next to the river. Before the tour, the guide sends a text with very specific directions, so keep your phone handy.

The tour ends back at the same visitor lot.

Know before you go

• Bring your own transport to and from the cemetery
• Not wheelchair accessible, and there is nowhere to store luggage or wheelchairs
• Strollers are fine and infants must sit on laps
• Smoking is not allowed
• Daytime slots only, inside cemetery hours of 8 am to 5 pm
• Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start

This is the right pick for four kinds of traveller. Families with kids of any age, since infants ride on laps and the seated format removes the meltdown risk of a long walk. Travellers with limited mobility or limited time, who still want to see the famous graves without trudging 160 acres.

Photography-minded visitors, who get the ornate monuments in daylight rather than in the dark. And anyone whose Savannah itinerary is packed, because one hour is the shortest format in this comparison.

It fits badly for three kinds of traveller. Wheelchair users, who are explicitly not suited by this listing. Ghost hunters after a scare, who should book an evening walk or trolley instead.

And deep divers who want a long, slow exploration, because several travellers felt the hour was short and wanted clearer timing with a couple more stops. If that sounds like you, consider visiting the free cemetery on your own after the tour for the spots the cart does not reach.

The golf cart hour ends back at the visitor parking lot by the river, and the cemetery stays open to the public until 5 pm with no admission fee. That makes it easy to pair the tour with a slower walk of your own afterwards, back to a grave you passed in the cart or along the bluff over the Wilmington River. Book a slot that leaves you an hour or more before closing if you plan to stay.

Where the Bird Girl went

The statue from the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is no longer in Bonaventure. It left the cemetery in 1997 and now stands in the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center downtown, so seeing it is a separate stop back in the Historic District, not part of this tour.

Bonaventure is the only listing in this comparison that takes you out to the cemetery by golf cart in daylight. Everything else runs in the Historic District in the evening, on foot or by trolley. The closest format match is the Ghosts and Gravestones night trolley, while the candlelit walk is the benchmark on ratings and review volume.

Figures current for Q4 2026.