Twenty-five nature sites offering a host of outdoors activities within a 30-mile drive of Vicksburg are highlighted in a new 25-page nature guide delivered to local visitors centers just in time for a weekend forecast to be sunny and dry.

The glossy, full color guide was unveiled by Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Bill Seratt at the VCVB’s monthly meeting Thursday. The VCVB partnered with the Audubon Society Lower Mississippi River Program in Vicksburg and the Lower Delta Partnership to create the guide — one of several the VCVB has created to tap into what Seratt calls “niche markets.”

“This is a great piece. There’s a real market for this kind of guide in our area,” said Elmeree Bradley, VCVB board member and supervisor of the Mississippi State Welcome Center near the U.S. 80 bridge. “People are always asking us about birding, hiking and camping.”

Creating and printing 50,000 of the nature guides cost $26,500, said Seratt, with the VCVB picking up the bulk of the cost. The Audubon Society contributed $5,000, and the Lower Delta Partnership another $2,500, he said. It features maps, directions and descriptions of state parks, lakes, historic sites, wildlife management areas and national forests near Vicksburg in Mississippi and Louisiana offering bicycling trails, boat launches, camping, fishing, canoeing, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, picnicking and wildlife viewing. Information about scenic drives, Mississippi River tours and regional outdoors festivals are also included, as well as Web site links and phone numbers.

“It’s a regional guide, but it encourages visitors to hub and spoke from Vicksburg,” said Seratt.

The recently renovated visitors center at 3300 Clay St. was to begin stocking the free guides Friday. Seratt said it will also be available at the Lower Mississippi River Program Office on Washington Street and the Mississippi State Welcome Center.

Seratt said he expects the guides to be popular due to the colorful cover and vivid pictures of wildlife and outdoors activities — he just hopes they make it into the right hands.

“A lot of people will pick it up because it’s pretty, but we’re going to try to get them into the hands of people who will actually drive the trails and visit the parks and management areas,” he said. “This is a very popular market, and we certainly have the resources in our area to tap into it if we can get the people the information they’re looking for.” 

The guide — along with the others created and currently in production — will be available soon as e-guides at the VCVB’s Web site, www.visitvicksburg.com, said Seratt. A $40,000 overhaul of the site is ongoing, and nearly complete. The guides are also mailed out to prospective tourists who request them online or by phone.

A brochure designed to help teachers plan day trips to Vicksburg is already available, and is in its second regional mailing. Also being created with help from a $25,000 grant from The Delta Initiative is the “The Art of Commemoration.” The 58-page, full-color glossy guide will focus on about 150 major works of art inside the Vicksburg National Military Park — which boasts one of the largest collections of public art in the country. The nearly 1,400 busts, bronzes, monuments and tablets in the park and around the city have been estimated at as much as $3 billion.

The guide is being created with the help of Dr. Michael Panhorst of Montgomery, Ala., who received a doctorate in Civil War commemorative art. Seratt said they are in the process of editing down the brochure, which will include information about the works of art and the artists, as well as GPS coordinates to locate the pieces.

Daytime highs in the low 90s and high 80s are forecast for today and Sunday, with overnight lows dropping to the mid-60s. There is no chance of rain forecast in the Vicksburg area through the middle of next week.

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com