Georgia is on my mind this week, not just with spring being an ideal time to visit America's Deep South but because of the anniversary of an event that brought the mood and magic of the state to a worldwide audience.

With the Second World War raging in Europe, the romance and drama of life before and during the American Civil War was captured in the film Gone with the Wind, which premiered in Atlanta in December 1939.

Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell and starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, the film has become one of the all-time classics and its 70th anniversary provides an ideal excuse for returning to the land where it was shot. America As You Like It, which specialises in tailor-made tours across the States, has created a ten-night self-drive Gone with the Wind trip at a surprisingly reasonable price.

It takes visitors not just to sites associated with the film and the war but includes tours of some of the oldest buildings in the country and a museum that is the essence of late 20th-century America.

The holiday starts with a flight to Atlanta, the base for the first three nights. Although the plantation in Mitchell's novel is fictional, she drew inspiration from the lives of the people around Jonesboro. The downtown Atlanta apartment where she wrote the book is now the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum. It is worth making a trip to the film exhibit at the Road to Tara Museum in an 1839 plantation house at Stately Oaks and to the Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum: Scarlett on the Square, which features rare movie and book memorabilia.

Staying in Atlanta also offers the opportunity to join a tour following the stages of the Battle of Jonesboro, take a behind-the-scenes look at the CNN Centre, visit the World of Coca-Cola and a magnificent new aquarium.

The holiday continues along the Antebellum Trail, a 100-mile (160km) route through seven communities that virtually escaped the Yankee General Sherman's burning march through Georgia, to Madison, with pre-Civil War and Victorian homes and a tastefully restored downtown.

In Macon, further down the trail, the options include a trolley tour to attractions such as the national landmark Hay House, where Confederate gold is rumoured to have been hidden, or the Historic Downtown tour. That takes in the Sports Hall of Fame, the Tubman African American Museum and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

The historic riverside city of Savannah is the base for the next three nights, offering ample time to explore the fort built in 1808 as well as the First African Baptist Church, which was built by slaves during the night when they were not working.

The trip ends with a relaxing couple of days on Jekyll Island, which was a hunting retreat for America's wealthiest families at the turn of the 20th century.

The Gone with the Wind tour, which you can take any time, costs from £870, with return flights from London, fully insured car hire and accommodation for ten nights.

www.americaasyoulikeit.com - 020-8742 8299

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