South Carolina Travel Guide

South Carolina's Lowcountry is salt marsh, barrier islands and Charleston's historic streets — a slower, more tidal version of the Atlantic coast, with a documented Gullah Geechee culture that's distinct from anywhere else in the country.

Charleston International is the main gateway; Hilton Head and the barrier islands are within a couple of hours' drive down the coast.

Spring and fall (April–May, September–October) are the mildest, most comfortable months for exploring the coast. Loggerhead sea turtles nest on the barrier islands May–October. Summers are hot and humid.

Late spring gets you comfortable weather alongside the start of loggerhead nesting season on the barrier islands.

Shrimp and grits and she-crab soup are the Lowcountry standards, Frogmore stew (a one-pot shrimp-corn-sausage boil) is a local institution, and Carolina Gold rice — the crop that built the region's plantation-era economy — is having a real heritage revival on menus.

Loggerhead sea turtles nest on the barrier islands through the summer, and the coast is one of the few places where dolphins practice "strand feeding" — deliberately beaching themselves on mudflats to trap fish, a learned behavior specific to this stretch of coastline. American oystercatchers and other shorebirds work the salt marshes year-round.

Warm Atlantic water makes for approachable wreck diving off the coast, and the Cooper River near Charleston is a genuine fossil-hunting destination underwater — divers regularly surface with prehistoric shark teeth, most famously from megalodon, washed out of river-bottom sediment layers.