Southern Living

A journey down one of the most ecologically diverse rivers in the Southeast reveals beauty around each bend.

The Flint River snakes down Georgia, a safe distance from I-85 and I-75, before joining the Chattahoochee River in Lake Seminole and cutting across the Florida Panhandle as the Apalachicola River. It is home to the endemic and feisty shoal bass and also to one of the country’s most beautiful and rare flowers, the shoals spider lily. It has a history with a few American Presidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt fished in the river, which was near his Little White House, and decades ago, it was saved by Georgia’s own Jimmy Carter. Yet the Flint remains somewhat obscure, which is both a benefit—for those seeking quiet refuge—and a liability. If the past has proven anything with this river, as with other wild places, you have to know it to want to protect it.