Those that know me well know that one of my favorite places in the world is Savannah, GA. It has a special place in my heart for more reasons than one. After college, I moved to Hilton Head, SC, and worked for a small marketing firm. I spent almost every Saturday and/or Sunday in Savannah and that’s when my love affair began.

Two weeks ago, I was there for a visit (my is to return at least once a year). I’ve found it’s the most relaxing place for my husband and me. Typically, we walk a lot enjoying the weather and the live oaks and the architecture and imagining what it was like a couple hundred years ago. We do our best to ignore all the cars. Food and drink always play a big role in our schedule. We have our favorite watering holes, on River Street (don’t miss their Bloody Mary’s), for the outdoor live music, and for my after dinner snack of She Crab bisque, and restaurants we crave, on Tybee and .

Bernie’s on River Street

This trip, we did things we had never done before, however. We decided to play tourist on Saturday night with a friend and signed up for a ghost tour. I don’t necessarily believe all the ghost stories, but what we learned about the history of some of the sites and homes we saw was fascinating, if embellished.

I did do a little work while I was there. We visited the on Tuesday and I met with Rita Elliott at the the following day. I spent most of my Wednesday with Rita, actually. She gave me a tour of the Savannah History Museum and the Roundhouse Railroad Museum then I went with her to the monthly meeting.

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum

Savannah History Museum

One of the topics discussed at the CMA meeting was the training of interpreters and how important it is to make sure they are telling the story correctly. A common theme emerged—visitors seemed to believe the first person with whom they spoke about a certain topic. That is not always a good thing. For instance, one lady described a time when she was confronted by a visitor who told her the information given at her site did not match when she was told previously by a guide giving a ghost tour. No matter what she said, the visitor was adamant that the guide was right and the interpreter at the historic house museum was wrong.

When I was on the ghost tour, I took much of what the guide said with a grain of salt. It was fun and she was an excellent story teller, but how factual could her information be? For me to believe a tour company guide, whose purpose is to entertain, over an interpreter who works directly for a historical site would hardly be possible. To our tour guide’s credit though, her information seemed to be spot on, at least regarding the historical aspects of the (we went on a tour of that home the day after the ghost tour).

Owens-Thomas House

Have you had any experiences with visitors who come to your interpretive facility with false information? Have you found that it is difficult to change visitors’ perceptions that have been developed by previous sources?