East Coast Family Oriented Beach Town Suggestions

[LoganBuck]

We have done the Outerbanks thrice(people need to use thrice more). My advice with a little one: you and your wife, rest up during the day and take off at dark. Drive overnight. Take turns when necessary. Let the kid sleep. Chew up as much mileage overnight. You can be most of the way across Virginia when the sun comes up. If you are going somewhere to sit at the beach and watch the water, and relax, driving overnight isn't a big deal.

[mole44]

We have done the Outerbanks thrice(people need to use thrice more). My advice with a little one: you and your wife, rest up during the day and take off at dark. Drive overnight. Take turns when necessary. Let the kid sleep. Chew up as much mileage overnight. You can be most of the way across Virginia when the sun comes up. If you are going somewhere to sit at the beach and watch the water, and relax, driving overnight isn't a big deal.

I can second this. We usually do this when we go to Tennessee to visit my Wife's family. We went to Outer Banks last year when my Daughter was 9 months old, but did not have that luxury. She got pretty bored half way through and wasn't happy. Only thing that would calm her down was listening to the Mickey Mouse Hot Dog song over and over and over................and over.

But back to Outer Banks its a pretty laid back place. I was expecting more like a Myrtle Beach setting, but its much more mellow than that. Definitely a good place to relax. Only thing I didn't really like was that the ocean was pretty rough when we were there and it scared my daughter so we didn't get to do a lot at the beach.

[SunDeck]

We are going to Charleston for about 3 days and Pawley Island for about 2 days in July. Any must do things at Pawley in particular?

Do you golf? If so, try True Blue or Caledonia. Stunning courses; you half expect that there will be guys crawling in the fairways with little shovels and combs, fixing ever last imperfection. I think Riverclub has the nicest greens in the area and it's probably a little more forgiving than True Blue.

Huntington Beach SP and Brookgreen Gardens are just north of Litchfield, so maybe 10 minutes from Pawley's Island. These two places were created from a few plantations bought by the Huntington family, where they kept a summer "castle" on the beach. It's still standing, a really odd building, but fun to tour. Brookgreen was Anna Hyatt Huntington's art colony and it is now an astounding botanical and sculpture garden. You can take a boat tour from Brookgreen, which goes out into the canals of the old rice fields. Might see a 15 foot gator that likes to sun on a sand bank.
http://www.brookgreen.org/

If you're interested in seeing the swamps you can do a two hour guided kayak tour. I actually had an alligator run into my kayak there once, but it's all good. They are so scared of humans that you're more likely to be overturned because a gator panics than you are of being attacked. And there are no mosquitoes in the swamps because the water's moving.
http://www.blackriveroutdoors.com/gu...yak-eco-tours/

The Shrimp Dock (aka Independent Seafood Mkt) at Georgetown is where you can get fresh caught, head on shrimp and whatever else they might have that restaurants didn't get first thing in the morning. Nice people, they won't rip you off.

There are a couple plantations between Charleston and Pawleys, if you are interested in seeing them. I always found that kind of depressing, but they are part of history.

Hobcaw Barony is south of Pawleys by maybe 1/2 an hour. It's an interesting place, owned by the Baruch family, once the retreat of Bernard Baruch, a close friend and adviser of Roosevelt's during WWII.
http://hobcawbarony.org/visit/

Lastly, if you do nothing else, go to Hog Heaven on US 17, south of Pawleys. It's vinegar based Carolina BBQ at its best. Be aware though that it's kind of a dump, as all good Carolina BBQ shacks are. Give it a try, with some hot sauce.
http://www.hogheaveninc.com/

[dabvu2498]

Have any of you OBX people gone up to or stayed in the "4 wheel drive" area up north of Corolla? We've been trying some more "adventurous" and hard-to-get-to places. Like Daufuskie Island, SC (highly recommended), Sapelo Island, GA (even too far out for me), and Ocracoke (pretty much perfect). Thinking about trying the 4-wheel-drive area next.

[LoganBuck]

dabvu2498 I haven't, but a guy from my area does that every year. He loves it. He drives his Jeep down there from Ohio, lets the air out of the tires, and drives all over the place.