Pawleys Island is a four mile barrier island of weathered cypress cottages with no hotels, no gas stations and no shops on it, reached by two short causeways over the salt marsh. The island itself is for the beach, the creek and doing very little, so the rest of a trip runs up and down Highway 17 to the gardens, the state park and the old rice country around Georgetown.
The top 13, ranked
Ranked by how consistently each pick appears across official Pawleys Island sources, the local destination marketing organization, and recent independent roundups.
- Top pick
#1Best for Art and gardens · #1 of 13Brookgreen Gardens
GardenNorth on Highway 17 to Murrells InletOpen daily through the year on a daytime schedule with last entry well before closing, and evening opening during the winter light displaysTicketedAnna Hyatt Huntington and her husband Archer bought four former rice plantations in 1930 and turned them into the first public sculpture garden in the United States, and it still holds the largest collection of American figurative sculpture anywhere, set in formal gardens under live oaks. A native wildlife zoo, a rice history trail and a working farm exhibit share the same property.
Local tipGeneral admission tickets are valid for seven consecutive days, so treat the first visit as reconnaissance and come back for the parts you rushed.
- Top pick
#2Best for Wildlife · #2 of 13Huntington Beach State Park and Atalaya
ParkNorth on Highway 17 to Murrells InletOpen daily through the year from early morning until evening with longer hours in summer, and a per person park charge plus a small separate fee for the houseTicketedThe same family built a Moorish winter house called Atalaya on the ocean side of the highway, and the twenty five hundred acres around it are now a state park with three miles of undeveloped beach, a freshwater lagoon full of alligators and one of the best birding lists on the east coast. The house is a National Historic Landmark and open to walk through.
Local tipStop on the causeway between the two lagoons at either end of the day, which is where the alligators and the wading birds are easiest to see.
- Top pick
#3Best for Beach days · #3 of 13Pawleys Island Beach
ParkThe islandOpen in daylight through the year, with dogs allowed on a leash under seasonal daytime restrictions in the warm monthsFreeThe ocean side of the island is a wide, quiet strand backed by private cottages rather than towers, with public access points marked along the length of it and no lifeguards, no vehicles and no overnight use. It is the reason the island exists, and its emptiness compared with the beaches an hour north is the whole point of coming here.
Local tipPublic parking beside the access points is limited and signed, so arrive early in summer and read the signs rather than assuming.
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#4Best for Walking · #4 of 13Historic Pawleys Island and the Creek Side
Historic SiteThe islandThe island roads and creek docks are open at any hour, and the cottages are private homes seen from the road rather than touredFreeRice planters began moving their families onto this island in the eighteenth century to escape the fever season inland, and a run of their cypress cottages still stands, some of them among the oldest beach houses in the country. The back of the island faces the creek and the salt marsh, where the crabbing, the small boat docks and the sunsets are.
Local tipThe island has no shops, fuel or groceries at all, so stock up on the mainland before crossing either causeway.
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5Best for Shopping · #5 of 13
The Hammock Shops Village
MarketNorth on Highway 17 to Murrells InletShops keep daytime hours through the year with a shorter Sunday, and a fuller program of events in the summer seasonFree with paid optionsA cluster of low buildings under live oaks on Highway 17 grew up around the Original Hammock Shop, which has been selling the cotton rope hammock designed here in the 1880s since 1938. The village now runs to dozens of independent shops and galleries selling clothing, jewelry, art and food, and it is where most of the retail life of Pawleys actually happens.
Local tipWatching a hammock being woven at the original shop is free, and it explains why the things cost what they do.
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6Best for On the water · #6 of 13
Kayaking the Salt Marsh and the Rivers
TourThe islandGuided paddles run through the year with the fullest schedule from spring to autumn, and departure times set by the tideTicketedThe water behind the island splits into a maze of tidal creeks that a kayak can reach and a motorboat cannot, and local outfitters run guided trips across three different landscapes, the salt marsh and inlet creeks, the blackwater cypress swamps of the Waccamaw, and the old rice fields with their surviving trunks and dikes. Naturalist led paddles run out of the state park as well.
Local tipTrips are timed around the tide rather than the clock, so take the slot the outfitter offers instead of the one that suits your morning.
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#7Best for History · #7 of 13Hobcaw Barony
Historic SiteSouth to GeorgetownThe visitor center opens on weekday daytime hours with guided tours running on a published schedule and needing booking in advanceTicketedSixteen thousand acres of forest, marsh and old rice field north of Georgetown were bought as a winter shooting estate by the financier Bernard Baruch, who hosted Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill there, and the whole property is now a research reserve. Guided tours take in the main house, the stables, a church and the surviving cabins of the enslaved and later freedmen communities.
Local tipAccess beyond the discovery center is by booked tour only, because the rest of the property is an active research reserve rather than open land.
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#8Best for History · #8 of 13Hampton Plantation State Historic Site
Historic SiteThe rice riversGrounds and trails open in daylight most days, with mansion tours running at fixed times and a separate charge from the groundsTicketedA colonial rice plantation house stands unfurnished on the Santee delta about forty minutes south, shown on guided tours through twelve rooms that explain how it was built, extended and paid for. The site handles the rice economy and slavery that produced it directly, with excavated dwelling foundations, a surviving kitchen building and two trails through the old fields and pine woods.
Local tipThe house is open only on guided tours at set times on most days of the week, so check the schedule before making the drive.
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#9Best for Walking · #9 of 13Georgetown Harborwalk and Front Street
Neighborhood LandmarkSouth to GeorgetownThe boardwalk is open at all hours, while the shops keep daytime hours and are quietest early in the weekFree with paid optionsTwenty five minutes south, the third oldest city in South Carolina keeps a four block boardwalk along the Sampit River behind its main street, running between the Kaminski House and the old town clock. Front Street itself holds independent shops and galleries in nineteenth century buildings, and the working shrimp boats are still tied up within sight.
Local tipPark on Front Street and use the alleys between the buildings to drop down to the boardwalk rather than walking the whole loop twice.
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#10Best for History · #10 of 13The Rice Museum
MuseumSouth to GeorgetownOpen on a daytime schedule from midweek through Saturday with the last tour well before closing, and closed on SundaysTicketedGeorgetown's old market building and the hardware store beside it hold the museum of the rice economy that built this coast, told through maps, dioramas and artifacts. Its centerpiece is the Browns Ferry vessel, a freight boat built in the early 1700s and raised from the bed of the Black River in 1974, the oldest colonial built vessel on display anywhere in the country.
Local tipThe vessel gallery is upstairs in the second building and is easy to miss if you only do the market hall.
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11Best for Culture · #11 of 13
Sandy Island
TourThe rice riversTours run through the year by reservation only, lasting a couple of hours and departing by boat from the mainlandTicketedBetween the Waccamaw and the Great Pee Dee sits the largest undeveloped island on this coast, home to a Gullah community descended from the people enslaved on the surrounding rice plantations, still reached only by boat and with children still taken to school by water. Guided tours run by reservation to the villages, the cemetery, the schoolhouse and the island store.
Local tipThere is no casual visiting here, because the island is somebody's home and the only way across is on a booked tour.
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#12Best for Outdoors · #12 of 13Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge
ParkThe rice riversOpen in daylight through the year at no charge, with a visitor center on weekday hours and hunting seasons affecting some unitsFreeSome twenty three thousand acres of tidal freshwater wetland, cypress swamp and abandoned rice field are protected along the Waccamaw and Great Pee Dee rivers, a landscape almost nobody sees from the coast road. Hiking trails run near the Highway 701 bridge, and the real point of it is paddling the creeks and oxbows between the old dikes.
Local tipThere is far more water than trail here, so plan it as a paddling day rather than a hiking one unless you only want the short river walks.
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13Best for Evenings · #13 of 13
Murrells Inlet MarshWalk
Neighborhood LandmarkNorth on Highway 17 to Murrells InletThe boardwalk is open and free at all hours, with the surrounding businesses busiest on summer evenings and quieter midweek in winterFree with paid optionsA half mile timber boardwalk runs along the estuary in the old fishing village fifteen minutes north, past the charter docks and out over the marsh, and it costs nothing to walk. It is the busiest, loudest thing within reach of Pawleys, which makes it either a useful evening or a good argument for staying on the island, depending on the night.
Local tipCome at the end of the day for the light across the marsh and the boats coming in, before the evening crowd arrives.
Where things cluster
Pawleys is one narrow island and one long highway, and everything sorts into the island itself or a drive north or south along Highway 17.
- The islandFour miles of sand, cottages and creek reached by two causeways, with the ocean on one side and the salt marsh on the other. There is nothing commercial on it at all, which is the point, and the kayaking starts from the same water.
- North on Highway 17 to Murrells InletThe mainland strip north of the causeways carries the Hammock Shops and the Litchfield developments before reaching Brookgreen Gardens, Huntington Beach State Park and the boardwalk at Murrells Inlet. Nothing here is more than twenty minutes away.
- South to GeorgetownTwenty five minutes south, Georgetown is a working port and the third oldest city in the state, with a river boardwalk, a street of nineteenth century shops and the museums of the rice economy. Hobcaw Barony sits on the approach to it.
- The rice riversInland and south, the Waccamaw, Great Pee Dee and Santee rivers run through cypress swamp and abandoned rice field, holding the wildlife refuge, Sandy Island and the plantation house at Hampton. This is the half of the area almost no visitor sees.
Make it a day
Sculpture in the morning, sand after lunch
Open at Brookgreen Gardens, which needs three or four hours to do properly and is best walked before the heat, keeping the ticket for a second visit later in the week. Cross the highway to Huntington Beach State Park for the causeway, the alligators and the Atalaya house, then be back on the island in time for the beach and the sunset off the creek side.
North one day, south the next
Give the first day to the gardens, the state park and the island beach, which is the version of Pawleys most people come for. Use the second to go south instead, taking a guided tour at Hobcaw Barony, walking Front Street and the harbor boardwalk in Georgetown, and finishing at the Rice Museum or on a paddle through the old rice fields.
Alligators, sculpture and an empty beach
Start at the state park, where the causeway between the lagoons puts alligators and wading birds within a few feet of a boardwalk and the beach behind it is wide and shallow. Add the wildlife zoo at Brookgreen in the afternoon, and finish crabbing off a creek dock on the island, which occupies children for longer than anything you can buy.
Map
Best time to visit
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April through June and September through October are the strongest windows, with warm water, workable humidity and the gardens at their best in spring. High summer is hot, humid and busy, though even then Pawleys stays far quieter than the beaches to the north, and the biting insects in the marsh are worth planning around at dawn and dusk. Autumn brings the cleanest weather and the tail of the hurricane season together. Winter is mild and very quiet, with the beach walkable, the birding at its best in the refuges and a good share of the shops on reduced days.
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Pawleys Island things to do FAQ
Parking, timing, cost, and weather answers for a smoother visit.
What is there actually to do on Pawleys Island itself?
Less than most beach destinations, deliberately. The island has no hotels, shops, restaurants or fuel, just cottages, the beach on one side and the creek and salt marsh on the other. Days there are built around swimming, walking the strand, shelling, crabbing off a dock and reading in a hammock. Everything else, including the shops, the gardens and the state park, is a short drive back over one of the causeways.
Is Brookgreen Gardens worth a whole day?
Most visitors underestimate it. It covers several former rice plantations and holds the largest collection of American figurative sculpture in the country, along with formal gardens, a native wildlife zoo, a rice history trail and a farm exhibit. Three to four hours is a realistic minimum. Because general admission tickets stay valid for seven consecutive days, the sensible approach is to go twice rather than trying to see everything in one long visit.
How is Pawleys Island different from Myrtle Beach?
Almost completely. The big resort strip forty minutes north is built for volume, with high rise hotels, amusement parks and chain entertainment, while Pawleys is a four mile island of private cottages with nothing commercial on it and a local motto about being arrogantly shabby. If that noise is what you are after, this is the wrong end of the coast. If you want an empty strand, sculpture gardens and rice country history, it is the right one.
Where do you park to reach Pawleys Island beach?
The island has public beach access points marked along its length, with a limited number of signed public parking spaces near them and private drives either side. Read the signage carefully, because most of the island is residential and enforcement is real. In summer the spaces near the popular accesses go early in the morning. Huntington Beach State Park a few minutes north has a proper car park and lifeguarded swimming if the island is full.
Can you visit Sandy Island?
Only on a booked tour. Sandy Island lies between the Waccamaw and Great Pee Dee rivers, has no bridge, and is home to a Gullah community descended from people enslaved on the surrounding rice plantations. Residents still come and go by boat and children still travel to school by water. Guided tours run year round by reservation and take in the villages, the cemetery, the schoolhouse and the island store, but there is no casual visiting.
How far is Charleston from Pawleys Island?
About an hour and a half south on Highway 17, which makes it a long but reasonable day trip and a natural second base on a longer coastal itinerary. Georgetown, which is much closer at twenty five minutes, covers a lot of the same colonial and rice history with none of the crowds. Charleston has its own guide on this site if you want to plan that half of a trip properly.
Keep planning
Use these nearby guides to extend your Pawleys Island trip with a different pace and a clear next stop.
Hero image: Brookgreen Gardens near Pawleys Island, photograph by DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9. Image credits. #1 Brookgreen Gardens: DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #2 Huntington Beach State Park and Atalaya: Doug Coldwell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #3 Pawleys Island Beach: Phoebe, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #4 Historic Pawleys Island and the Creek Side: Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #7 Hobcaw Barony: Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. #8 Hampton Plantation State Historic Site: Rathlin48, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #9 Georgetown Harborwalk and Front Street: Thomson200, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. #10 The Rice Museum: Billy Hathorn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #12 Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge: Myrtle Beach TheDigitel, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.