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South Carolina
Discover South Carolina

Brookgreen Gardens

On U.S. Highway 17 between Myrtle Beach and Pawleys Island is Brookgreen Gardens, a combination of sculpture garden, zoo, and nature preserve on the site of four colonial rice plantations.

Charleston

Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau

If you're looking for Southern culture, tradition, and history, Charleston is a good place to visit. Its well-preserved homes and plantations showcase life in the antebellum South, and the American Civil War started at Fort Sumter in the wake of South Carolina's decision to secede from the Union. Gullah Tours gives visitors a look at the life of the Gullah people, the first black inhabitants of South Carolina's Lowcountry, whose unique language is native to the Charleston area.

Edisto Beach State Park

Visitors to Edisto Beach State Park enjoy numerous outdoor activities, including fishing, boating, picnicking, swimming, and hiking through a maritime forest. There's also an education center for learning about the largest natural estuarine reserve on the East Coast. If you want to spend the night, cabins are available for rent, and there's tent and RV camping as well.

Myrtle Beach

Discover Myrtle Beach

Lots of people love it, some not so much, but it all depends on what you're looking for and expect to find. At Myrtle Beach the main thing is - of course - the beach! Part of the sixty miles of sandy white beaches known as "The Grand Strand," Myrtle Beach offers the usual swimming, beach lounging, and fishing, and you can go boating and windsurfing and enjoy lots of other ocean/beach-oriented activities as well. There are more than 100 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area - it isn't called the "Seaside Golf Capital of the World" for nothing.

South of the Border

Pedroland.com

Anyone who drives on I-95 toward South Carolina encounters signs advertising South of the Border from at least 100 miles away. As the South Carolina/North Carolina border nears, the signs increase in frequency and size. When you finally get there, you'll find restaurants, stores, a motel complete with honeymoon suites, gas stations, a campground, and more. It's kitschy and corny in the extreme and is open 24 hours a day, every day.

Trip Report - The Carolinas, April 2004

Has anyone ever stopped at South of the Border, South Carolina before? I would like to officially nominate it as Most Depressing Place on Earth. Also depressing is Myrtle Beach, which I for some reason always imagined as being upmarket and almost snooty, like Napa Valley except with golf courses instead of wineries. Of course, this illusion was quickly shattered. It was more like a cross between Vegas and the carnival that came through Greeley, Colorado each summer. It's extra sad because Wall Drug, with which South of the Border clearly shares a lot of DNA, is a fun diversion along the endless wastes of the Dakotas. Yet the endless wastes of the Carolinas have given birth to a sad, smelly, mutant cousin of the advertised-for-hundreds-of-miles tourist trap genre.

Another illusion I had been laboring under was that Hooters was sort of like the Hard Rock Cafe, in that each town was allotted one and only one franchise. Not so, as there is one every few blocks in Myrtle Beach.

On the other hand, the Outer Banks in North Carolina are lovely and at the moment on the positive side of the unbearably touristy border. Charleston, South Carolina is also a fine town that I wish we'd had more time in. Lastly, it warms my heart to have seen a place that is actually called "The Great Dismal Swamp," as if it were out of a Winnie-the-Pooh book or something.

Comments:

I stopped at South of the Border long ago in the late '70s. I was on a road trip with a two-year-old and the in-laws, and we were on our way to Florida (my first trip there). From the time we left Richmond behind, I thought I would lose my mind until we arrived in FL. The scenery never changed, and SOTB was a huge nothing. I haven't been to Myrtle Beach since the mid '80s, and I'm sure it's changed by now. There was a middle section of beach between the south and north ends that wasn't too developed at that time, and that's where we stayed. We enjoyed it a lot at the time.

South of the Border is a pile of shit, made all the more disappointing by the enticing signs that manipulate you for hundreds of miles on I-95. I have a friend who has been camping at Edisto and had wonderful things to say! Secondhand testimony is always sketchy, I suppose, but she goes camping a lot and really enjoyed that trip. Charleston is gorgeous, and I especially like the southern charm, architecture, and history.

South of the Border is crap. Charleston is nice. Hooters are a dime a dozen. I know they kill you with those damn advertisements for hours along the highway before you get to that dump.

Nobody does seedy like the Dirty South. I love Charleston, despite always visiting in the height of summer (it's not the heat, it's the stupidity!). The Boy was going to propose to me in Charleston, but he got all excited the night before and popped the big Q at the side of the highway somewhere outside of Knoxville. Oh, romance! I've never had the misfortune of going to Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head or any of those places, but we've beached on Edisto, a wonderful little island that boasts no boardwalk, few condos, a state park, and a herpaquarium. Go to Edisto! People actually live there. George and Pink's vegetable stand has the best summertime fruit and vegetables ever. I adore Edisto. It's a beautiful island.

I like the Carolinas in general. Love Charleston. Hyman's is an unfortunate name for a wonderful restaurant. Myrtle Beach ... what can I say? It was my family vacation my 18th, 19th and 20th year. Disengaged myself from the folks, baked on the beach and met lots of hot guys with accents like Val Kilmer in "Tombstone." It was fun at the time but, funnily enough, was just talking to the parents tonight, and they mentioned something about going on vacation together. I hope I didn't hurt their feelings with my hearty NO. Ummm - their ideal vacation is lying on the beach or ship. My next trip will be 7 countries. I would strangle someone if I had to go to Myrtle Beach now.

Myrtle Beach is depressing, and the water there is still muddy. Charleston is an anomaly, and seeing as you can't really get there from here (the routes aren't very direct from the inland), I suspect it will save itself from the god-awful crap that surrounds it. The rest of the South sucks except for specific places that remind me of an oasis in the vast wasteland of the desert.