Vampire Diaries Tour, Covington, GA

Covington, GA

Vampire Diaries

www.vampire Stalkers.com Tour

Okay let me start off by saying that my friends and I have never had so much fun on a trip.  Not because of the tour and sites but just 4 grown women being totally silly and just loving life.

We are all from the Indianapolis area in Indiana.  We took off Thursday afternoon and drove 10 hours to Covington, GA. We stayed at the Hampton Inn there. It was really nice. The rooms were nice and the beds were actually comfortable, which rarely happens.  When we showed up, there were so many cars (luxury ones) there.  We were told before going that the stars of the show were known to stay here when they worked late at night.  After a little research a couple of the cars are the exact make and model of what Nina (Elena) and Paul (Stefan) drives.  That next morning as we were eating breakfast a few of the crew members for Vampire Diaries were down there and discussing shoots for the upcoming day.  We never saw any of the stars of VD but wonders if there were actually there!

Friday afternoon we are to meet Jessica and her husband from www.vampirestalkers.com for our tour @ 12:30pm.  Well I had MapQuest wrong directions and got lost.  I had to call Jessica to find out where we were and how to get to her.  She was very nice and was happy to give us our directions.  We ended up finding her at 12:40pm (10 minutes late).  When we pulled up we were taken aback.  Each of us was paying $55 for the tour (total of $220).  There were in a minivan and both looked like they had just rolled out of bed to meet us.  Jessica’s hair was not brushed and showing her tracks badly and looked like she was wearing what I wear to bed (old ratty t-shirt and lounge pants).  We all paid our money to giddy to care and got in the van.  The van was dirty and smelled BADLY! I was starting to wonder how well this tour would really be. 

The tour: We started off at the Mystic Grill and went from there.  Jessica had many stories from the set.  She also told us many little things about our favorite actors too.  We were eating this all up and loving it.  We walked around took lots of pictures and jumped in and out of the van many times to take pictures of the homes and locations.  We visited the following locations: Mystic Grill, Mystic Falls Court House & Sheriff Forbes Office (outside only), Dr. Gilbert’s Office, Rooftop used on the show, Famous Graveyard of Isabel’s death, Site of Aunt Jenna’s and Uncle John’s Funeral, Witches Burial Grounds, and the following homes: Elena & Jeremy’s, Matt & Vicki’s, Gram’s, Lockwood Manor (got to walk the grounds at this location), Caroline’s, Isabel’s, Lockwood Manor from flash back episode.  The website says we were supposed to see many other locations but we were never taken there (Bree’s Bar, Trudie Peterson’s home, Tomb Vampire Hideout, Mystic Fall’s High School Football field, Library where Jeremy and Anna met, Pearl & Anna’s home, Founder’s Hall, Salvatore family home from the 1800’s.  We were all pretty upset by this.  Our tour only lasted a little over an hour, which I felt was not as long as I thought but that makes sense since we were not taken to all the stops.  After the tour was done we were taken back to the Visitor Center where we met them at.  Then they opened the trunk of the van to sell us merchandise.  We were told no else sells anything in the town, which is not true.  I am sure that was just to get us to buy from them. Jessica and her husband were very nice people and had lots of little bits of information on everything that was nice to know.  BUT the girls and I went into investigation mode after the tour. 

After the tour: We were told the favorite restaurants of the stars and what ice cream they order at Scoops (which is the local ice cream parlor and has AMAZING ice cream and treats).    When we went into Scoops and talked with the workers and asked them if they ever served any of them and their take on the crew and them shooting there.  We got totally different answers on what the stars actually eat/drink there.  Which what the people in Scoops said makes so much more sense (fat free lattes and everything without the fat) since the stars are skinny and if you eat Banana Pudding shake (which Jessica told us is what Ian gets all the time there) every day you shoot that would probably add up after a while.  Not that any of that really matters.  But we were told by the lady in Scoops that the Antique Shop on the Square sells TVD merchandise (which has really nice stuff and cheaper than what Jessica ws selling hers for) and also they give you a FREE map of all the locations we went to today (which was the EXACT same map that the driver was using on the tour we went on) so you can find everything on your own.  So we paid $220 to www.vampirestalkers.com to drive us around to all these places we could of done our selves.  I felt so stupid for taking the tour after that. The only thing it offered we couldn’t of done on our own was a tour of the grounds of Lockwood Manor.  It was definitely our own mistakes but I am writing this for anyone else out there wanting to tour Covington, GA for the Vampire Diaries so you will not get the short end of the deal either.

I will be including on this site the map and other information we obtained during our trip that I scanned in.  You can also go to www.GoCovington.com for more information too!