Editors' picks across 8categories — the dock with the deepest channel, the winery with the view, the restaurant with the right wine list, the trail nobody's on at sunrise.
A family-friendly, casual restaurant on Kowaliga Marina Road — a longtime Lake Martin institution, no reservations taken.
Visit ↗A lakeside restaurant at Stillwaters Resort with a 360-degree bar and over thirty boat slips for patrons arriving by water.
Visit ↗A boat and watercraft rental operator in the Dadeville/Jackson's Gap area — ski boats and Bennington pontoons, plus kayaks, paddleboards, and tubes, rentals from four hours to a full week.
Visit ↗Lakeside Marina's second location, on Bay Pine Road in Jackson's Gap.
Visit ↗Alabama Power completed the dam in 1926 after starting construction in 1923 — at the time, the reservoir it created was the largest human-made lake in the world. Originally called Cherokee Bluffs for the rock formation beneath it, the dam was renamed in 1936 for Thomas W. Martin, the Alabama Power president who helped draft the state's dam laws.
Visit ↗A state park on the lake's western shore, seven miles south of Alexander City — the largest state-operated campground in the United States, with 626 sites, 157 of them waterfront. A swimming beach, boat ramp, fishing pier, and pontoon and jon-boat rentals round it out.
Visit ↗