Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace

The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace is two museums in one: a beautifully restored Savannah townhouse and the living headquarters of a national pilgrimage. The house, a Regency-style residence built between 1818 and 1821 at the corner of Bull Street and Oglethorpe Avenue, was home to the Gordon family for generations, and it is where Juliette Gordon Low — Daisy to her family — was born in 1860. In 1912 she gathered a group of girls in Savannah and founded what became the Girl Scouts of the USA, and the organization bought her birthplace in 1953 and has owned and operated it ever since. It became Savannah's first National Historic Landmark, and the interiors are restored to their 1886 appearance — the year of Daisy's marriage in the house — with a large share of original family furnishings, portraits and Daisy's own artwork. Guided tours move through the parlors, dining room and bedrooms, telling the story of a deaf, unconventional, adventurous woman who reinvented herself after a difficult marriage and built one of the largest girls' organizations in the world. The Gordons' Civil War experience, with family on both sides, is woven through, and a focus tour on the subject goes deeper. Expect troops: Girl Scouts come from all over the country, often in sashes, and their excitement is part of the atmosphere rather than a distraction. Fit: families above all (especially with a Scout in the group), history travelers interested in women's history, and first trips that want a classic Savannah interior on the Bull Street walk.

Daisy Low is the reason to come, and she is better company than most house-museum subjects. Born into a prominent Savannah family, she was educated in Virginia and New York, lost most of her hearing through a combination of illness and an accident at her own wedding (a grain of rice lodged in her ear), married the wealthy Englishman William Mackay Low, and spent years in England and Scotland where she met Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, and worked with the Girl Guides. Back in Savannah in 1912 she started the first American troop, funding the young organization partly by selling her pearls. Guides weave these episodes through rooms that hold her paintings, sculpture and personal objects, and the house becomes a portrait of a woman whose energy outran every convention of her class.

The house is also an excellent architectural stop on its own. The Regency townhouse was later enlarged and Victorianized by the family, and the 1886 restoration shows the house as a comfortable, slightly crowded family home of the late nineteenth century rather than a showroom. The museum programs special events through the year — a women's suffrage series ran in early 2026 — and the shop is a magnet for Scout memorabilia. Note that the Andrew Low House on Lafayette Square, where Daisy lived after her marriage and where the first troop met, is a separate museum; history completists can see both in a morning.

Practicals: guided tours run through the day on a set schedule, with limited hours on some weekdays and the last tour mid-afternoon; check the official schedule before you go, because troop bookings can fill slots, and buy ahead in spring when Scout travel peaks. The house has an elevator and is one of the more accessible historic homes in the district. It sits on the main Bull Street walking route, a block from Wright Square, so it slots easily between the squares, the cathedral and the Telfair museums. Allow about an hour including the shop. For families, a satisfying half-day pairs the birthplace with the Savannah History Museum, where a carriage that belonged to Daisy Low is on display, and a picnic or ice cream on one of the nearby squares. Scout troops planning a pilgrimage should book their program directly with the museum well in advance, since reserved troop programs are separate from public tours and popular dates in spring fill early. Everyone else can usually find a public tour the same week outside peak season.