Well as we all know, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, which is really cramping our normal travel plans. We’ve had to cancel three trips that were previously planned and another one we optimistically scheduled in the middle of the summer. We ended up sending our kids to some small in-person summer camps to get some social interaction and were hoping that school would go back in-person for at least part of the week. Ultimately the public school system decided to go fully remote for at lease the first quarter. Some of the summer camp places turned into day camps but they were quite expensive, so we looked at alternative options — where could we go that costs less than two kids in full-day camps? The answer: Myrtle Beach!
Because of the collapse of the travel industry, there were crazy deals to be had, and even cheaper with longer stays. We ended up booking 33 nights in a three bedroom / two bathroom condo on the beach for less than a third of the usual cost. We decided to take a full weekend to casually drive there and back to avoid planes but also to have a car and feel like locals while we were there.
On the way down, we stopped in Lexington, KY and Asheville, NC. We knew we wanted to see more of Asheville, so Lexington was just a pitstop to sleep and move on. The hotel “breakfast” was an individual brown bag with prepackaged snacks, but it was enough to hit the road. The drive was uneventful and we were able to check into the Asheville hotel early to drop off our luggage and go exploring.
The city is surrounded by mountains and it’s hard to jet between them so we picked an area that had several waterfalls to focus on. The first stop was Looking Glass Falls, which is enormous and right next to the road. It was quite popular so you have to park a couple blocks away and walk in. The road is near the top of the falls and there’s a staircase to go down to the bottom where you can get some great photos and/or take a dip in the river. Next up was Sliding Rock Falls which we were originally going to skip because our kids aren’t old enough to physically slide down the waterfall (the main attraction). Since we were in the area though, we figured we might as well check it out. Sliding Rock is so popular that it has an admission booth where you have to pay to visit. There was recent rainfall that made the waterfall unusable so it was virtually empty, but they still happily collected the admission fee. The water was raging so much that the normal lines and steps around the waterfall were completely underwater so we had to view from the peripheral. Upon leaving, there was a map of other waterfalls there and we decided to check out Slick Rock Falls relatively close by. We missed the final turn as it’s an unmarked dirt road, and it ended up being a bit of a harrowing experience with lots of twists and turns. When we reached the waterfall though, it was totally worth it. It felt very rustic, natural, and non-touristy. You can walk right up to them and through them if you wanted.
Back in town, we went to White Duck Taco Shop for dinner, which was delicious and highly recommended. We then strolled around downtown, stopping at the famous French Broad Chocolate Lounge before ending the night checking out two local breweries: Green Man Brewery and Burial Beer Co. The next morning we ate a fantastic breakfast at Biscuit Head before hitting the road for the final stretch into Myrtle Beach.
Remote learning and working from there was surprisingly pretty easy to get used to and we got into a new routine quickly. We often started and ended the day on the beach collecting shells, with lots of swimming mixed in. This was a very different style of travel for us and we had to fight the urge to see everything quickly. Myrtle Beach can sometimes have a bad reputation as being very touristy but in these troubled times, there were barely any tourists so it was quite lovely. It definitely picked up a bit on the weekends, so we decided to explore other nearby cities to avoid the crowds and the little bit of chaos they brought with them. Most of the blog post here will focus on the weekend adventures as our time within Myrtle Beach was really a home-away-from-home with not much to write about.
Within Myrtle Beach, there are a ton of restaurants, and at least ten prominently display that they have “Calabash seafood”. When we realized that the actual city of Calabash (known as the Seafood Capital of the World) was only 30 minutes away, we decided to go straight to the source for our first day trip. We arrived late in the morning and spent an hour or two at the impressive Vereen Memorial Gardens, an expansive forested area with a large marsh and boardwalk paths (note: you can drive all the way down to the marsh and skip the 20 minute forest hike). We then went into town and had lunch at Waterfront Seafood Shack, which is exactly what it says it is! After a tasty meal, we drove to the outskirts of town to Sunset Beach and walked down the beach for nearly a full hour to get to the Kindred Spirit Mailbox, which I had read about on Atlas Obscura. It’s an old mailbox that someone put there 30 years ago and people have been putting letters in it ever since. There were notebooks and pens so you could write your own message and then begin the long trek back to the parking lot. After some quick shopping at St. Nick Nacks, we had a fancier dinner at Oyster Rock, just a few doors down from our lunch restaurant.
On Sunday, we found that one of Jaime’s college friends was nearby for the weekend so we spent the morning with him in Pawley’s Island. After catching up, we spent the afternoon at a top attraction called Brookgreen Gardens. It’s a massive sculpture garden and wildlife preserve. Sort of half artistic botanical gardens and half outdoor zoo. Definitely worth a visit. At one point there is a large field with tens of thousands of scattered lights but unfortunately you can only see them lit during special events in the evenings or over the holidays. We ended the day at a regional-favorite pizza chain called Mellow Mushroom.
The following weekend we intended to go to Southport, NC but it seemed like a lot of stuff was closed, so we opted instead for Wilmington, NC. It’s more of a mid-sized town and was a surprise highlight of the trip. Lots of stuff to do, hip retail stores, and breweries. We started the day having breakfast at The Dixie Grill (after a long wait for a table). We then strolled all around downtown. First step was the grounds and gardens at the nearby Burgwin-Wright Museum before an extended shopping stop at Memory Lane Comics to fill up on comic books for the drive home. We then made our way to the Boardwalk and walked its full length, ending at the Museum of the Bizarre. It’s one of those quirky places full of obviously fake paranormal activities and oddities that stretch the imagination. We then hopped in the car to drive across the river to the USS North Carolina, a full-blown battleship where you can take a self-guided tour. It was very impressive and the kids loved it. Afterward, we weren’t quite hungry yet, so we made a detour to a kombucha brewery called Panacea Brewing Company to relax and try all 12(!) of their kombuchas. We ended up taking three growlers back to Myrtle Beach to enjoy during the rest of the trip. Back downtown, we had dinner and drinks at the popular Front Street Brewery and picked up delicious dessert from The Peppered Cupcake (to go).
The next day we decided to stay local and do some of the tourist stuff we’d been driving by during the week. We started the day at Spy Glass Mini Golf for a round of 18 holes and then went to LuLu’s Beach Arcade to play some games. We got there when it first opened so it was a ghost town (good for us as we were hoping to avoid crowds). They also have a 30-40 foot multi-level rope course outside that Lydia did. She was so excited and scared, and we were so proud of her for doing it! For the evening, we went just south of the city to North Litchfield Beach where we heard there were lots of starfish, but we didn’t see a single one. We ate dinner in a large outdoor gazebo at a local hotspot named the Hot Fish Club and ended the evening strolling down a long pier and boardwalk at the Murrells Inlet Marsh Walk. There are several restaurants in that area but they were all super crowded, so we were extra happy with our dinner choice.
For the next weekend we weren’t sure what we wanted to do, we just knew we wanted to see more outside of the city. We were originally planning on stopping in Georgetown on the way back from Charleston (our final weekend excursion) but decided to knock it out early and give us more time in Charleston. We stopped for breakfast at Eggs Up Grill on the way there. Once there, we parked on the edge of town and just started walking. The town itself is small and compact. It’s really just comprised of Front Street and the parallel Harborwalk along the water. It seems like the town wakes up late because everything was closed and no people were out for the first 90 minutes or so we were there. We ended up walking up and down those two streets several times and did some shopping as places opened up. Our one real attraction there was a tour of the Rice Museum. It was a pretty interesting tour and we had no idea how important rice was to the region. It did leave a little bit of a bad taste in our mouths as it tended to make slavery not seem so bad. We had a late lunch at a great restaurant recommended to us called River Room and followed that up with dessert at Sweeties Homemade Ice Cream & Sweets before heading back.
The next day we had planned to go back to Wilmington to revisit the dessert place and stock up on more kombucha. Unfortunately the cupcake place was closed on Sundays, but fortunately I found a closer brewery that sold one of their kombuchas on tap, so we decided to skip Wilmington and make it more of a loose ends day. We started with an early lunch back in Calabash, at a restaurant named Captain Nance’s Seafood, which funny enough was in between the previous two restaurants we ate at in Calabash. We then spent some additional time shopping at St. Nick Nacks since our previous visit was cut short by upcoming restaurant reservations. We then made our detour to Makai Brewing Company to get some more kombucha and some of their in-house beers too before continuing on to Southport. One of the attractions there is the Bald Head Island ferry so we attempted to start there. It was jam-packed! Parking lots full, overflow lots also full, and huge lines to get on the ferry itself, so we quickly left and went to Downtown Southport. The city itself was the smallest one yet and things were still closed, so we spent most of our time in public areas along the coast. First stopping at City Pier to collect some shells and take in the views, and then we stumbled upon the Salt Marsh Boardwalk and Waterway Overlook across town where we had a really nice relaxing stroll to end the evening.
Our last full weekend was also our longest as the kids had the Monday off school, so it was the only one we planned in advance — in Charleston! Jaime had lived there for seven years during and after college and we’ve visited twice in the past so we knew we’d enjoy it. The drive there was about two hours and since it was early we started downtown and attempted to get breakfast at Miller’s All Day. The wait time upon arrival was 2.5 hours so we decided to try another day and instead wander around the city. We were already on the main shopping drag, King St, so we started there, then down to Rainbow Row, a stretch a fancy painted houses, and onto the Battery, a beautiful park along the coast. We then decided to leave downtown for lunch and went to a great restaurant called Acme Lowcountry Kitchen in Isle of Palms, SC. Afterward, we stopped at the nearby Fort Moultrie and while the interior was closed, we enjoyed walking around the perimeter and attached beaches. Back in downtown Charleston, we were able to check in to the John Rutledge House Inn, a fantastic old mansion where our room was in one of the two rear coach houses. After a free tea-time in the upstairs ballroom, we ate dinner at Halls Chophouse, a favorite of ours.
On Sunday, we gave the kids a tourist map and let them plan out our day. We meandered through the city checking out various sights, such as churches, cemeteries, old horse stables, Old Charleston Jail (Lydia’s favorite), the famous Historic Charleston City Market, and ending the day swinging on the porch swings and dancing in the fountains of Waterfront Park. That evening we had found a babysitter through a friend and had an early night out at the Blind Tiger with Jaime’s same college friend we met in Myrtle Beach! Monday morning we went to Miller’s All Day again right when they opened for a delicious breakfast (but glad we didn’t wait 2.5 hours before!). We then spent the afternoon strolling Folly Beach, where we had visited with friends nine years ago, before heading back to our condo.
Our final week in Myrtle Beach was a hodgepodge of stuff that we enjoyed or didn’t have a change to do yet. We had hibachi dinner for a second time (since it’s seriously lacking in Chicago), rode amusement rides, went on both of Myrtle Beach’s Ferris wheels (not realizing there were two until the kids pointed it out), and played some more mini golf. With two nights to go, a friend posted on social media that he had just moved to the beach with a picture of the South Carolina flag, so I reached out and discovered they had relocated just south of Myrtle Beach! It was too late that night so we met them for dinner on our last night. We hadn’t seen them in a couple years, so it was a lot of catching up, and they have a daughter that our girls got to play and eat with. The seven of us were too large of a group to eat out in covid-times, so we had to split up and the three girls got their own table which they thoroughly enjoyed. It was such a great way to end the trip.
For the trip back, we originally planned our first night on the way back to be in Greenville, SC where I worked briefly and where Jaime had another college friend. My old boss had to cancel our plans for a kids’ sports tournament so we just stopped for lunch with Jaime’s friend and continued onto Knoxville to spend the night. We had intended to spend a little time in Knoxville but my top attraction, the Sunsphere, was closed and we had a long to-do list from a friend in our next stop that we decided to just grab coffee and hit the road. That next stop was in Cincinnati a few hours north. We started with lunch at the iconic Skyline Chili on the way into town. Our hotel was in the business district near Fountain Square, which was mostly under construction. We started our city tour at Smale Riverfront Park, a beautiful park along the river with swings and skyline views. Next to the park is Roebling Bridge, built by the same architect as the Brooklyn Bridge. We then strolled north through town and just across a semi-sketchy area into the hip Over-The-Rhine neighborhood where we had a great dinner and liquor-infused ice cream. We ended the night relaxing at Washington Park. The next morning we ate breakfast at an empty but delicious Taste of Belgium and ended our time in Cincinnati taking in the views from Eden Park on the east side of town.
The final ride home was uneventful. We talked at length about lessons learned on this amazing adventure and what resonated the most with us. We came up with the following list:
- Being on the east coast while keeping our work and school schedules on central time allowed us to have a much more relaxing morning.
- It was really nice waking up without an alarm clock.
- We appreciated sunrises and sunsets more and hope to see more of them when at home.
- Walking on a beach and hunting for unique shells was a calming activity.
- Listening to the waves was very pleasing, so much so that we may consider living on the beach at some point in the future.
- Doing more frequent laundry freed up more time on the weekends for other family time and it didn’t feel like a daunting “laundry day”.
- Most importantly we snoozed all of our local social media groups and lived a life without worrying about the random noises, suspicious people, and neighborhood activity, etc.
We had such an amazing experience on this trip that we decided that if school continues being remote, we’d try to find another place to do it all again. Well they ultimately did and I’m now wrapping up this post from New Orleans! Look out for the write-up from here next month.