Charming Charleston enables you to feel like you stepped back in time with its striking architecture and easy-going rhythm. However this modern city's incredible cuisine reflects the variety of their population, as does its cultural scene.
This historic port has incredible beaches, markets and historical sites available and plenty of them are free to visit. Our round up of the best samples by mail to do in Charleston will assure your next vacation doesn't bust your budget.
1. Angel Oak Tree
One of Charleston's most popular attractions is also one of its most unique. Found on Johns Island, around 11 miles outside of the city, this southern live oak tree is said to become 1500 years old (others say it's only 400 to Five centuries old).
Whatever the reality, it's one of the oldest living organisms east from the Mississippi, standing 66.5ft tall and measuring 28ft around. Its thick branches shoot off in all directions, oftentimes twisting to the ground and back up again. There is no admission for Angel Oak Tree. There's no climbing allowed either.
2. Charleston City Market
Attracting browsers and buyers since 1804, Charleston City Market bustles with more than 300 vendors hawking from sweetgrass baskets to piping-hot biscuits. Running for four blocks, this vibrant, open-air marketplace is one of the oldest in the united states and it is a great way to obtain a feel for the town.
Some travelers may feel it's a bit schlocky, but you will find interesting finds and locally-made products here. Consider items marked having a 'Certified Authentic Handmade in Charleston' seal. The night time marketplace is held in the same space and displays the wares in excess of 100 local artists and craftspeople.
3. Folly Beach
There really are a dozen islands within an hour's drive of Charleston, nearly which have great beaches. Day-trippers will often go for Sullivan's Island or even the Isle of Palms, whilst families head for Edisto Island. But Folly Beach, a motorway of white sand and gnarly waves just nine miles in the city, that is the ideal all-rounder for beach lovers.
4. Rainbow Row
With its 13 candy-colored houses, this stretch of Georgian row houses on lower E Bay St is among the most photographed areas in Charleston. The structures date back to 1730, when they served as merchant stores around the wharf, a sketchy part of town at that time. From the 1920s the buildings were restored and painted over in pastels. People dug it, and shortly a lot of the rest of Charleston was obtaining a similar makeover.
5. Gateway Walk
Created in 1930 to celebrate Charleston's 250th anniversary, the Gateway Walk is really a loose, natural path that winds through several church grounds and overgrown graveyards between St John's Lutheran Church and St Philip's Church. Best visited in spring, when the wildflowers have been in bloom, this much-loved local route could make you seem like you've discovered a secret all year round.
6. Charleston Tea Garden
A 35-minute drive from the city on Wadmalaw Island, Charleston Tea Garden is America's only large-scale tea plantation. No enslaved people were ever held or forced to work here. Instead it had been William Barclay Hall, a third-generation tea taster trained in London, who managed to turn this farm into a commercial operation.
Established in 1963, owners were the first one to produce a tea made from 100% American-grown leaves. Today the Garden has free factory tours and tastings. Trolley tours, however, are charged.
7. Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge
With its two sail-like concrete towers, this 471m-long cable-stayed bridge across the Cooper River is arguably the city's most impressive construction. Named following the Republican politician who ran for the state Senate in 1996 simply to get it built, Charleston's much-loved suspension bridge cost an eye-watering US$531 million.
The drive across it is spectacular, however the the easy way be thankful is by walking or cycling via its pedestrian walkway – though most likely not in April once the annual Cooper River Bridge Run sees 40,000 people legging it over too.
8. College of Charleston
With lush landscaping, which includes live oaks draped in Spanish moss, as well as its historic mansions and homes, it's no wonder the school of Charleston campus has been called America's most breathtaking. Spread in a couple of city blocks at the center of Charleston's downtown, travelers can click on South Carolina's oldest university for free. Both self-guided and student-led tours have the freedom.
9. Battery and White Point Garden
For a walk steeped in history go to the Battery and White Point Garden at the southern tip from the Charleston Peninsula. Buffered with a seawall, it requires its name from the fortifications that used to line the seafront here and the mounds of oyster shells that once piled over the point.
Stroll past cannons and statues of military heroes within the gardens, then walk south along Charleston Harbor (the confluence from the Ashley and Cooper Rivers is going to be at your left) and look for Fort Sumter, whose bombardment through the Sc militia started the American Civil War.
10. Farmers Market
Each Saturday, Charleston's terrific farmers market sells local produce, including homemade food and drinks. For budget travelers, it is the art and free entertainment that's worth looking at.
11. ArtWalk
On the first Friday of each and every month, a lot more than 40 galleries in Downtown Charleston open their doors free of charge and host events, activities and special programs. There's often a variety of styles on show, from both regional and national artists, and also the Charleston Gallery Association includes a map on its website which allows travelers to enjoy the ArtWalk on their own all year round.
12. Waterfront Park
This lovely, eight-acre park around the Cooper River is notable because of its landscape architecture and also the eye-catching Pineapple Fountain which you'll want to see across the city on from postcards to tourism brochures. If it's hot, make such as the locals and wade into one of pools that dot Waterfront Park.
13. Palmetto Trail
A short drive from Charleston, the Palmetto Trail is really a boon for outdoor enthusiasts. When completed, this mountain-to-sea route will ribbon 500 miles from Walhalla in Oconee County to Awendaw in Charleston County, cutting through acres of Palmetto forests, the palm tree that features on South Carolina's state flag.
There are a couple of good routes that begin near to Charleston: the 7.1-mile Awendaw Passage, which offers wonderful vistas of Lowcountry salt marsh, and also the Swamp Fox Passage, which at 47.6 miles is the longest stretch of the trail, but could be carried out small chunks.
14. Sullivan's Island
Only ten minutes by car from Charleston itself, Sullivan's Island is how life comes to slow right down. At 3.3 miles long, this barrier island of wispy dunes and white sand beaches is ideal for doing hardly any at all. Fishing, maybe. Cycling through the marshes, if you fancy it. Photography, if you can muster the energy. Beach walks, however, are almost mandatory.
This article was originally published on March 4, 2022.
