"Gone with the Wind" Walking Tour (Self Guided), Atlanta

Atlanta does “give a damn” about Gone With The Wind. There is a number of museums and sites in the city that commemorate one of America's all-time classic stories. Although released as far back as the 1930s, both Margaret Mitchell's award-winning novel and the film that followed shortly still inspire curiosity about and are equally celebrated in Atlanta.

The first port of call for Gone With The Wind fans, thanks to its central location in Midtown, is the Margaret Mitchell House. “The Dump”, as Mitchell herself lovingly called her apartment on the ground floor of this redbrick house, today is a museum and the holy grail of all Gone With The Wind stops – because this is where it all started! The museum includes the restored rooms in which most of “Gone With The Wind” was penned.

The breathtaking Georgia Terrace Hotel. Here, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Olivia de Havilland stayed while the film premiered in Atlanta. You can possibly sleep in the very same room as the movie stars once did. Beneath the grand staircase inside the hotel Margaret Mitchell also attended the after-party for the Gone With The Wind premiere.

While Atlanta Central Library itself isn’t the original Carnegie Library co-founded by Mitchell’s father, it does acknowledge the past establishment's connection to Gone With The Wind. Inside is a permanent Margaret Mitchell exhibit, featuring, among other essential artifacts, her Remington typewriter and the 1937 Pulitzer prize for Gone With The Wind.

The Oakland Cemetery, a historic oasis at the highest point of Atlanta, is an iconic and eerily pretty location for the burial spot of more than 3,000 Confederate soldiers and 16 Union soldiers, as well as for Margaret Mitchell herself, who was tragically killed by a speeding car while heading to the movies with her husband, John Marsh.

If you wish to follow in the footsteps of Atlanta’s most famous author, see the sites related to her life and otherwise explore the events, facts and fiction associated with Gone With The Wind, take this self-guided walking tour.