The Grand Strand
Most people think of the Grand Strand as the coast of South Carolina; technically The Strand is an island with a 60-mile oceanfront and three roads connecting it to the mainland (four, if you count U.S. Highway 17 connections in both the North and South strands.) Surrounded on the north and the west by the Intracoastal Waterway, the east by the Atlantic Ocean and the south by Winyah Bay, the Grand Strand can be basically shut off from the outside motoring world by closing four bridges.
The Grand Strand is named so for a reason: The wide strand accommodates people of every type at various activities including swimming, sunbathing, sea-shelling, volleyball playing, Sea-Dooing, fishing, parasailing, boating and more. The communities are first and foremost beach oriented. All the houses and buildings are designed for optimum views of the water. One street inland, Myrtle Beach goes beyond sand in your shoes and provides restaurants, shopping, golf and many other diversions.
In recent years, the Grand Strand has been spotlighted in Southern Living magazine's Reader's Choice Awards as the second most popular beach, after Destin, Florida. BYWAYS magazine, a publication of the National Motor Coach Network, ranked Myrtle Beach as the favorite destination of motor coach carriers and tour operators. Good Morning America has televised part of its shows here, as was a QVC (television shopping network) telecast. The accolades keep pouring in, matching the expectatons of more than 12 million visitors every year.
The Grand Strand directly and indirectly generates near $5 billion annually, about one-third of South Carolina's total revenues from travel and tourism.
More than 15 percent of all visitors to the beach are senior citizens. And many of those visitors retire here; it's not only cheaper than Florida, but the area also has a much lower crime rate than some larger Florida cities.
Stretching far beyond just the city limits of Myrtle Beach, the Grand Strand reaches from the North Carolina border, beachcombing southward more than 60 miles to the historic, oak-lined avenues of Georgetown, where five rivers meet to form Winyah Bay. This 60-mile stretch includes the latest high-tech amusements to more than 100 golf courses to world-class entertainment theaters and superstars to family beaches to almost-untouched beach wilderness. Amazingly, one can drift just slightly off the beaten path and find salt marshes, classic Spanish moss, hammocks, ghost tales and historic legends that make The Disney Channel seem dull.
So you've got plenty to do. Visit the world-famous Pavilion and ride every ride. Smell the salt water dancing with the scents of fresh cotton candy and mustard-coated corn dogs. Sift your toes into the sand as the surf laps at your ankles. Take a marsh cruise, go deep-sea fishing or windsurf. Fall asleep in the sun. Swim and sail and dine and dance. Play a few rounds of golf. Hob-knob with country music stars, or just relax and enjoy what the poet called "God's Country."
North Strand
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Tourist development of the North Strand began around 1937 with a log cabin-type motel. Except for some serious destruction from Hurricane Hazel in 1954, these little beach communities have maintained their individual identities while creating a greater presence as North Strand entities.
Although minimal but steady erosion has prompted a renourishment project on a 25-mile stretch of beach between North Myrtle Beach and Garden City Beach (see the related Close-up in our Beach Information chapter in the full print book), many folks who call the North Strand home boast that they still have the world's widest beach. While the claim is disputable, no one will deny that their beach is remarkably wide -- especially when the tide is at low ebb. Unlike many South Carolina beaches, this section of sand still offers plenty of room to bask in the sun, take long walks, mastermind sandcastles and play volleyball and paddle ball, even when the tide is high.
The sand of the North Strand is packed firm; driving cars on the beach used to be popular but is now prohibited. But bikes are allowed and make for a breezily enjoyable ride. Bicycles and a three-wheeled, low-riding style of bike can be rented along the North Strand, so avoid the hassle of bringing your own. The three-wheelers are a comic and attention-getting mode of travel; you sit in a semi-reclined position and pedal with your feet out front. It's awkward at first, but with a little coordination and some concentration, you'll get the knack quickly. Although these big trikes have hand grips, you steer using your feet and the sway of your body. Attachments allow you to pull the kids along.
Little River
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Where the Carolinas meet, the sun smiles on the charming fishing village of Little River. Nestled beneath the twisted arms of weathered oaks, you'll discover an unhurried and uncommon side of the Grand Strand. From clutches of cheerful shops, an unexpected array of merchandise spills forth. You can also schedule a deep-sea fishing excursion, take a cruise down the Intracoastal Waterway or hang around and chat with tanned dock workers while they haul in a day's catch. Restaurants, marinas and fresh seafood abound. Water is the undisputed king, and everyone is subject to its rule. Like the rest of the North Strand, Little River is growing rapidly, but it's still possible to discover marvelous pockets of solitude in this historic fishing village.
Each spring, thousands of people make a pilgrimage to Little River on the weekend in May when the horseshoe area of the beloved waterfront hosts the famous Blue Crab Festival (see our Annual Events chapter). This day-long event -- Little River's finest -- showcases live entertainment, oodles of arts-and-crafts displays and an abundance of fresh, delectable seafood.
North Myrtle Beach
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North Myrtle Beach, proud home of the state's shimmy-in-your-well-worn-Weejuns dance, the Shag, makes up the largest section of the North Strand. The city was established in the 1960s after legendary South Carolina Congressman John Jenrette (then a state legislator) argued that the four smaller communities of Cherry Grove, Ocean Drive, Crescent Beach and Windy Hill would prosper if they merged into a single municipality.
Condominiums and small motels are typical oceanfront accommodations, but you can still find front-row cottages. Their suitability for house parties, coupled with North Myrtle Beach's long-standing party-hearty reputation, make it a mainstay for Shaggers, collegiate men and women and arcade-loving kids.
What can be more relaxing than strolling along the white, sandy beaches of the Grand Strand.
Photo: Charles Slate/The Sun News
From mid-May, when exams end at many institutions, until mid-June, you'll find North Myrtle overflowing with celebrating students from far and wide. On Easter weekend alone, an estimated 75,000 to 90,000 kids flock to the beach for dancing and romancing. Over the years, police have been forced to become especially strict about public drinking. Consequently, many college kids have found themselves singing the jailhouse blues instead of dancing on the Strand. Jenrette, who served as the first town judge, still enjoys telling of his escapades trying not to jail many a young drinking party-seeker in the early days of North Myrtle. Even today, for those willing to demonstrate a little self control, one visit will confirm an irrefutable truth: There's no better place on the eastern seaboard to celebrate the end of another school year.
Cherry Grove, just south of Little River, is one of several communities that compose North Myrtle Beach. Sea Mountain Highway is the only way into Cherry Grove from U.S. 17, so watch the signs carefully. Cherry Grove has its share of oceanfront condominiums and motels, but away from the ocean you'll find rows of houses on pilings lining serpentine channels and inlets. Many Cherry Grove residents and tourists handpick this section of the Strand because they relish the joys of catching, cleaning and cooking their own seafood.
From dawn to dusk, Cherry Grove's Hogg Inlet bustles with folks shrimping and fishing, crabbing with chicken necks and dutifully tending their fish pots. Patient anglers troll, seeking out the day's best fishing spots. At night they gig for flounder. You'll be glad to know Hogg Inlet has a public boat landing, so you don't have to own a home on the creek to partake of the inlet's bounty. In recent years Hogg Inlet has also become a late-night hangout and parking spot for young locals wanting a secluded smooching area.
Along U.S. 17, the communities known as Ocean Drive, Crescent Beach, Atlantic Beach and Windy Hill run together in a hard-to-distinguish blur. In fact, if you're not a local, it's nearly impossible to know when you've passed from one community into the next. On the ocean you'll find more motels and condominiums in Ocean Drive and Crescent Beach. Windy Hill is less developed. Ocean Drive is best known as the place where the world-famous dance the Shag originated. Accordingly, Main Street Ocean Drive boasts several clubs where beach music will never go out of style.
Although not technically a part of the city of North Myrtle Beach, Atlantic Beach sits between the Windy Hill and Crescent Beach communities. Historically, Atlantic Beach was known as the "black beach" because during Jim Crow years it was the only beach on the southern Atlantic seaboard open to African Americans. Separated for years from the rest of North Myrtle Beach by oceanfront chain-link fences, today Atlantic Beach has a few small motels, nightspots and lots of cottages, and it is still primarily an African-American community.
Where North Myrtle ends Briarcliffe Acres begins, sheltered by a wall of tall pine trees. Moderately upscale and almost solely residential, you're likely to miss this tiny town if someone doesn't point it out. The easy way to find it is to look for Briarcliffe Mall on the west side of the highway.
One of the North Strand's many delights is Barefoot Landing, a top-ranked tourist attraction. On U.S. 17 and inland from Windy Hill Beach, this charming variation of a shopping center includes shops nestled around a 20-acre freshwater lake. Barefoot Landing is home to more than 100 specialty and retail shops, factory direct stores, more than 1,000 feet of floating dock, a boardwalk and a handful of waterfront restaurants. Attractions include the Barefoot Carousel, Barefoot Princess Riverboat, The Alabama Theatre and the House of Blues. An estimated 8 million visitors streamed through this beautiful complex in 1998, and the numbers keep climbing. Even locals love it, which is a sure testament to success.
The North Strand wraps up with the Grand Strand's famed Restaurant Row, with scores of restaurants and neon. Like a string of fine pearls, an impressive selection of restaurants lines either side of U.S. 17. Seafood, of course, is the natural specialty, but hearty steaks, spicy ribs, Italian favorites, Japanese options and even down-home country cooking can be found along this renowned strip. During summer dinner hours, nearly every restaurant sports a long line of eager patrons, but you're sure to find the food worth the wait. Highway traffic is especially heavy during that dinner rush, which starts as early as 5 PM and continues until around 8 PM.
Closest to Myrtle Beach is the unincorporated Shore Drive community. Highly developed and densely populated, this is an area of high-rise hotels and condominiums, retiree homes, a nearly constant flow of renters and timeshare purchasers and a couple of upscale residential communities
Myrtle Beach
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The Grand Strand revolves around the city of Myrtle Beach. The resort area first became popular here, and everything seems to spiderweb outward from Myrtle Beach. Though Pawleys Island was a long-standing resort for the wealthy, it was Myrtle Beach that made the Strand accessible to the general population. The largest, most developed and most popular of the beaches, Myrtle Beach is so dominant that most locals refer to it simply as "The Beach." Even folks living south in Surfside or Garden City and those living north in Ocean Drive or Cherry Grove still tell outsiders that they live "at Myrtle Beach."
In years past the area has been billed the Seaside Golf Capital of the World, the Campground Capital of the World and the Miniature Golf Capital of the World -- on top of all the other hoopla about the Strand.
Myrtle Beach once was even home to the world's largest sand sculpture. As part of a Sun Fun Festival (see our Annual Events chapter) promotion, Myrtle Beach challenged the city of Long Beach, Washington, to a sandcastle-building competition. Hundreds of volunteers rallied Southern pride to create a sand sculpture that stretched for 86,536 feet -- more than 16 miles! The feat landed the city in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1991 (Long Beach has since recaptured the record).
The tourism experts say that Myrtle Beach's greatest attractions are still the Atlantic Ocean and the beautiful beaches. But in the past few years so many other things have sprung up that it is hard for even Insiders to keep track of the latest attraction. In addition to shopping, amusement parks, miniature golf, water parks, waterway cruises, golf and the live-entertainment theaters, there is a constant quest among promoters to find more ways to satisfy visitors and residents alike. Whether it is the golfer's paradise, the country music and live-entertainment haven, the family beach, the food, the shopping, the amusements, the attractions ... whatever the draw, Myrtle Beach seems to provide something for everyone.
Even old-timers are amazed at the development that has transformed Myrtle Beach.
The Wall Street Journal recently declared that the state bird of South Carolina is evolving into to the "construction crane" because of Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach once was a summer vacation resort catering to blue-collar factory workers primarily in North and South Carolina and Tennessee. In fact, even Generation-X locals can remember when the only real tourist season was during July when the textile mills closed for vacation. But the face of Myrtle Beach has rapidly changed, becoming a mixture of blue-collar workers, northern mid-management retirees, upscale golfers, families and a whole new demographic of white-collar vacationers.
During the past 10 years, the Strand's 100-plus golf courses have helped expand the spring and fall shoulder seasons in the tourism industry to make Myrtle Beach a nine-month resort. Nearly 4 million rounds of golf are played in the area each year.
Still, the average visitor to the Myrtle Beach area is an ocean-seeking vacationer. Almost 40 percent of the 12 million annual visitors live within a day's drive to the beach. Myrtle Beach is approximately halfway between New York City and Miami.
Myrtle Beach's main drag is Ocean Boulevard (known locally as the Boulevard), the street that literally runs along the ocean. The Boulevard is divided east-west by numbered streets (30th Street S. to First Street S. and then First Street N. to 82nd Street N.).
Unofficially, Myrtle Beach is divided into four areas. The south end of the Boulevard is a solid line of accommodations -- some large, some small. The mid-portion of the Boulevard features venues for entertainment and activities, including the Myrtle Beach Pavilion and Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum. Beginning around 32nd Avenue N., there is an exclusive residential district where permanent and summer residents coexist in beautiful, moderately expensive homes. From 52nd Avenue northward, motels and condominiums dominate the beachfront.
Heading directly west from the mid-portion of the Boulevard, along 21st Avenue N., you will cross U.S. Highway 17 Business, also called Kings Highway and the primary home for shopping centers, a mall and regular non-resort businesses. Further west is Oak Street, primarily a banking and residential district. About 3 miles from the ocean you will hit U.S. Highway 17 Bypass; locals know it as simply the Bypass, and many have come to call it the "former Bypass" because of recent traffic backups. On 21st Avenue N., between Oak Street and the Bypass, you will find Broadway At The Beach, one of the most significant developments at Myrtle Beach during the past decade.
The beaches of the Grand Strand are public; in fact, law specifically designates how many feet apart public access areas must be, based on development density. Thanks to the vision of Myrtle Beach officials, many of the city's public access areas have parking available. The city has erected blue and yellow signs along the Boulevard to help visitors recognize these access sites. Handicapped access to the beach is also provided; through the efforts of several area civic clubs, beach services now offer specially designed wheelchairs that are easy to maneuver on the sand.
Myrtle Beach hosts many annual festivals. Two of the most popular are the Sun Fun Festival, usually held the first full weekend in June, and the Canadian-American Days festival, held in March to coincide with spring break for Canadian students.
The 46-year-old Sun Fun Festival originally served as an official kickoff for the summer season. Even now that Myrtle Beach is a nearly year-round tourist destination, the traditional Sun Fun Festival continues to offer four days of nonstop fun in early June. The famous festival frequently attracts national media attention to the beauty and bikini contests, sandcastle-building, a huge parade, children's games, musical and theatrical performances, cookouts, sailing regattas and much more.
Canadian-American Days offers a jam-packed agenda too. "Can-Am," as locals call it, was developed in recognition of thousands of Canadian tourists who were already visiting the beach every spring. About 36 years ago the Chamber of Commerce decided to launch a Canadian advertising campaign to extend the beach season by encouraging even more northern visitors during the otherwise slow time. During this 10-day festival, banks willingly exchange currency, and some businesses even offer an exchange rate at par. Radio, television and newspapers headline Canadian news.
South Strand
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The South Strand includes Surfside Beach, Garden City Beach, Murrells Inlet, Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island. Compared with the rest of the Grand Strand, the South Strand subscribes to a more leisurely pace and lifestyle, with less neon and glitter as well as a low key nightlife with just as much allure. Many praise this stretch of land, with its rich marshland, uninhabited beaches, bountiful inlets and maritime forest, as the Carolina coast's finest treasure. For those same reasons, South Strand residents cherish their privacy and work vigilantly to protect the area's resources.
The town of Surfside was incorporated in 1964 with 881 residents. Today, having officially changed its name to Surfside Beach and billing itself as "the family beach," the town's year-round population is more than 4,000. Immediately adjacent to Myrtle Beach and most like it in nature, Surfside Beach has become a destination unto itself -- mostly for RV park visitors and hotel guests who like a little more solitude than Myrtle Beach offers.
U.S. 17 in Surfside is lined with restaurants, beach shops and attractions, including the Legends In Concert show of celebrity impersonators. Accommodations along Surfside's oceanfront differ somewhat from those in Myrtle Beach. Fewer high-rises tower above the sun-drenched beaches, and cottages and condominiums treasure comfort.
Directly south of Surfside Beach, Garden City Beach is a family-oriented retreat sporting hundreds of residential homes, summer cottages and condominiums. Surf fishing reels in many participants along this beach, which is also a favorite retreat for beachcombers. Garden City Beach is also one of the Grand Strand's most popular retirement destinations, with large controlled-access senior-citizen communities dominating the area.
The point where Atlantic Avenue punctuates Ocean Boulevard is the only area in Garden City that resembles the glittery expanses of Myrtle Beach. Here you'll find arcades and carnival-style food vendors. As for quieter pursuits, walking Garden City's pier is a popular pastime, particularly when a silvery Carolina moon is riding high.
The North Jetty of Garden City was built in 1979 with rocks weighing up to 200 pounds each. It extends 3,445 feet from the shore and stabilizes the inlet across the ocean so commercial and recreational boats won't bog down. The jetty ensures ideal boating conditions, regardless of tidal action, which is especially important for those who fish commercially and rely on the sea's bounty to make a living.
South of Garden City is Murrells Inlet, the oldest fishing village in the state. Murrells Inlet is home to anglers, writers, poets and more legends and ghost stories than any other part of the Grand Strand. Mickey Spillane, who created the detective character Mike Hammer, lives in the Inlet as do a dozen other nationally known novelists, poets and musicians, all of whom love the small-town atmosphere of being able to walk into a fish market or a barber shop without being mobbed.
Fishing in the creeks and waterways of Murrells Inlet has been a way of life for generations, and the quiet community trumpets itself as the Seafood Capital of South Carolina. Best known to tourists for almost 50 seafood restaurants in a 3-mile stretch, Murrells Inlet also is home to numerous antiques shops, fresh seafood markets and Captain Dick's, one of the Grand Strand's best marinas (See our Boating chapter).
The journey south on U.S. 17 from Murrells Inlet to Litchfield is a quick, pretty trip. Densely wooded areas line the highway and give a sense of traveling back in time, a sensation deliberately cultivated by locals. Carefully manicured landscapes adorn the median along the main highway. Once known as Magnolia Beach, the popular resort of Litchfield Beach takes its name from Litchfield Plantation, a rice plantation on the Waccamaw River. The manor house is one of the few still-standing plantation homes surrounded by majestic oaks and is open as a country club and lodge.
Litchfield's quaint shops, outstanding restaurants and various accommodations are reasonably new compared to the historic resort of Pawleys Island, slightly south of Litchfield. The beaches of Litchfield and Pawleys are among the widest, most litter-free and best-preserved on the South Carolina coast; however, much of the property is private, and you'll find only a few points of public beach access. Though the points are clearly marked, parking is limited.
Pawleys Island proclaims itself as the oldest resort area in America. Even in the 1700s the tiny barrier island was a summer retreat for wealthy plantation owners and their families. Despite storms and the ravages of time, many of their cottages, weather-worn and rustic looking, still remain. Hence, for many years, locals have termed their island "arrogantly shabby." In fact, bumper stickers, T-shirts and tourism brochures for Pawleys Island all have adopted that description.
Today Pawleys is known for its low-key lifestyle, handmade hammocks and sightings of the Gray Man, a friendly ghost who warns of impending hurricanes. The cherished lifestyle is carefully protected by islanders. The 2-mile island was incorporated as a town in 1984 and in recent years has made for one of the most colorful political stories in South Carolina's history, with their struggle to restrict local building codes and prevent construction of high-rise condominiums and hotels. They have been successful. A few bed and breakfast inns flourish, offering a taste of beach living as it used to be: simple, unassuming and perfectly tranquil.
South of Pawleys Island and at the foot of the Grand Strand is Georgetown, a one-time rice-plantation and shipping community that is often called Little Charleston. With a Revolutionary War-era flavor, the quaint cobblestone streets and its well-preserved, two-centuries-old churches and homes, the flavor of the town really is colonial. A bell-towered Rice Museum dominates the center of town and features exhibits that track the antebellum history of the plantation heyday.
In recent years the little community has grappled with pollution problems stemming from wastewater discharge from International Paper and two steel mills that have long replaced the shipping, slaving and rice industries. Still, there is enough flavor left of the old colonial town and enough old-style bed and breakfast residences that the visitor seeking to step back in time will find a paradise in Georgetown.
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