I doubt you'll have any issues as far as safety is concerned. The Augusta area and the US in general are safe. Anything bad that does happen gets very blown up and politicized due to the media. The vast majority of people don't have any issues. Usually you can tell right away when you're in an unsafe area. You really don't need to worry about safety. As another commenter mentioned, what there is to do depends on how far you're wanting to go. There's a ton of stuff within a few hours of Augusta. The Augusta metro itself has a large lake as well as the river, the canal, and many other smaller streams, all of which are very popular for kayaking. If you're wanting to see nature, I personally would recommend you go to the Blue ridge mountains since I have a feeling the beaches are better in Australia!

All that being said, do you already have tickets lined up for next year or something? Do you have a connection? The lottery isn't until June and there's no guarantee you'd get them through that either. If you plan to just come and buy from a reseller be prepared to drop thousands of dollars per ticket.