The Grand Strand

The best kinds of vacations are the kind where you come home with sand in your pockets and a stellar seashell collection.
The kind where you wake up and go to sleep to the sound of waves. The kind where the most important part of the day is how many cornhole games you get to play and who is ahead by sun down and the hardest decision you make is whether or not to have seafood for dinner.

I promised myself years ago, that I would see the ocean at least once a year. The mountains and the prairie is where I live, and there is something magical about just a few days with the water.

Myrtle Beach, part of the grand strand, and its boardwalk, is a bustling piece of the sand. Full of food, music, entertainment and ferris wheels. On every block there’s at least one giant beach wear shop sporting $5 t-shirts and 99 cent shark necklaces, a seafood buffet that you can only enter through the mouth of a shark or crab and a mini golf course (there are 27 mini golf courses, approximately 32 beach shops and 19 seafood buffets within a 15 mile radius ) It’s loud and lively and crowded and crazy. It’s a sensory overload from every direction. Traffic jams occur every evening and weekend. And Ripley is everywhere… believe it or not.

I didn’t stay on Myrtle Beach.

I stayed in North Beach, about 20 minutes north of the boardwalk (by car)

With the help of a car, we were able to go back and forth ….. but I found North Beach to be… pleasant. I think I said that a hundred times while I was there. It was just pleasant, except when the wind was blowing at mock 90 or the 20 minutes of rain we got caught in. The beach had more seashells than I had ever seen on any other beach I’ve been on. And after the wind and wildness, it more washed up jelly fish than I have ever seen, like ever.

The food was delicious. We found some amazing holes in the wall (it’s always our goal to eat mostly seafood when we’re near the ocean.) and lovely places next to marinas with live bands and incredible calabash style fish. Even the pizza was perfect (enough to order it twice), mostly because we just wanted to relax.

We flew in and out of Charlotte NC, just so we could say we have been there and spend a few hours exploring. Plus the drive east was really gorgeous, through winding forests and sprawling estates and green…. coming from snow, seeing anything green was so refreshing. We found, of course, an awesome place to eat and uptown was very busy but very happy. It had a really awesome vibe.

Places to Eat:

Famous Andy’s Pizza

Local on the Water

Mystic Lobster

Biminis

and in Charlotte

Maro Bella in the 7th Street Market