Lee County
During football season, fans of the Auburn University Tigers – and visitors rooting for the other teams – crowd into Jordan-Hare Stadium to watch the games.
And, on home game days, fans converge for the traditional Tiger Walk that runs from the Athletics Complex to the stadium to cheer on the Auburn Tigers football team.
But during basketball season, crowds gather inside Neville Arena on campus to watch the Tigers play hoops.
Sports lovers in Auburn can stroll along the Tiger Trail in downtown Auburn. The trail features plaques honoring legendary Auburn student athletes, coaches and administrators embedded in the sidewalk. With the Class of 2025, the number of inductees is 140.
Looking for entertainment that is a bit more … highbrow? The museums and cultural arts centers in the Auburn-Opelika area may be more to your liking.
The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University bills itself as a “teaching museum” with an extensive art collection and a mission to promote historical research, innovation, art education and community outreach. Also check out the Opelika Art Haus that presents works from local and regional artists and hosts workshops and classes.
Another place to visit is the Museum of East Alabama. Located in Opelika’s historic district, the museum houses thousands of archeological and rural artifacts and antiques from businesses from the past in Lee, Macon and Russell counties.
In Auburn, the Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center is a space that regularly hosts exhibitions and theatre performances as well as art education programs.
Lee County also is home to several performing arts centers where visitors can enjoy concerts, musicals, plays and dance performances. At Auburn University, visitors can see a show at the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center, the Telfair Peet Theatre and the Black Box Theatre.
Another venue is the Opelika Center for the Performing Arts. For more than 35 years, the facility has hosted orchestras from around the world, touring Broadway productions, dance performances and more.
But for those desiring outdoor recreation and adventures, the region offers visitors plenty of parks and preserves to explore.
Nearly 700 acres in size, Chewacla State Park in Auburn features a 26-acre lake as well as campgrounds, cabins, picnic areas and trails for hiking and biking.
Just north of downtown Auburn is the Kreher Preserve and Nature Center — 120 acres of forest land where visitors can view native plants and wildlife and walk the trails. The center even offers a spring break camp where youngsters can spend three days learning from naturalists.
Billed as Auburn’s largest park, Kiesel Park offers amenities that include a pond, walking trail, garden, pavilion and a place where dogs can romp without a leash.
But if birding is your passion, grab your binoculars and head out to the Opelika Wood Duck Heritage Preserve and Siddique Nature Park. The park is home to more than 170 species of birds in habitats that include ponds, swamps and forests.
Bird lovers also can tour the Auburn University Raptor Center, a facility that rehabs and releases raptors back into the wild.
Another popular recreational spot in Opelika is Spring Villa Park. Set on 350 acres, Spring Villa is on the National Register of Historic Places and features 30 sites for campers and RVs, a lodge, an archery park and disc golf courses. It also is the site of the antebellum Penn Yonge House. The park’s new lodge is slated to open this fall.
One can visit restored, historic homes built at the turn-of-the 20th century at Opelika’s Northside Historic District. During the holidays, the district holds the Victorian Front Porch Christmas Tour featuring more than 60 homes, Christmas carolers and local residents dressed in Victorian-era costumes.
Macon County
Upon arriving in Macon County, visitors can stop by the city’s official visitor’s center and museum, the Tuskegee History Center, also known as the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center, to learn about the city’s past and the famous men and women who put Tuskegee on the map like the scientist George Washington Carver.
Macon County is the home of the tourist attraction Moton Field, the place where Black soldiers, known today as the Tuskegee Airmen, learned to fly through the U.S. Army Air Corps, and Tuskegee Institute, which today is Tuskegee University. The Tuskegee Airmen completed more than 1,570 missions during World War II.
Visitors also can tour the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site that features museums highlighting the historic institute of higher learning.
Among the sites to see are the historic campus and the George Washington Carver Museum. The museum tells the story of the renowned botanist’s work on the many uses for peanuts and his role as Tuskegee Institute’s first agriculture department director.
The Historic Site also includes The Oaks, home of Tuskegee Institute’s founder, Booker T. Washington, and Washington’s grave on the Tuskegee University campus.
In nearby Notasulga, tourists can see the Shiloh Rosenwald School, one of the first Rosenwald schools built for Blacks between 1913 and 1932 during the Jim Crow era. The school, the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, established in 1870, and Shiloh Cemetery are all listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
The church and cemetery are the sites of a tragic chapter in medical history known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study when a group of Black men in Tuskegee, starting in 1932, were unwitting participants in a research study on syphilis where they received no treatment. The study ended in 1972.
Russell County
The 1.2-mile Phenix City Riverwalk sits along the Chattahoochee River, where visitors can stroll, run or bike to an open-air, 3,000-seat amphitheater or observe local wildlife. The Riverwalk includes two pedestrian bridges that connect to the Columbus Riverwalk across the river in Georgia.
Russell County also is home to the Phenix City Art Center where visitors can enjoy exhibitions and take art classes.
History buffs have plenty to explore in Russell County, too. In the town of Fort Mitchell, they can check out the Chattahoochee Indian Heritage Center to learn about the history of the Creek Nation that once lived on the land and the period when the Creek Nation was forced from its homeland, a tragedy known as the Trail of Tears.
The Fort Mitchell Historic Site, located less than 10 miles south of Phenix City, features a fort built in 1813, a restored log cabin, old-time carriages, surreys and wagons and numerous artifacts, from arrowheads and guns to pottery and other items.
In Seale, sightseers can tour the old Russell County Courthouse, view the 157-year-old courthouse’s architecture and view displays of Native American artifacts and paleontology exhibits. They also can tour the Museum of Wonder, a facility filled with folk art, antiques, artifacts and an assortment of oddities.
Want to spend a day at the races? Check out the East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City and watch competitive car races and monster truck shows on a dirt track.
Youngsters and the young at heart can enjoy Idle Hour Park & Moon Lake in Phenix City. The park features a nature trail, picnic areas, a pavilion, Moon Lake and a splash pad.
But if a leisurely game of golf is more your speed, a trip to the 18-hole Lakewood Golf Course in Phenix City might be just the ticket. The course amenities include a clubhouse with a golf shop and a putting course.
This article appears in the December 2025 issue of Business Alabama.
