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Follow the locals’ lead on your trip to Charleston and find out what makes the Holy City so charming.
Visit the barrier islands
The peninsula is surrounded on three sides by barrier islands with fascinating coastal geography. Subject to erosion and accretion, some of the islands have become home to “boneyard” beaches where the ocean has breached the dune line, overtaking the maritime forest. The resulting ghostly expanse of petrified trees is ripe for exploration at low tide and perfect for photography as the tide shifts and waves flood the former forest with briny water.
The most easily accessible boneyards are on Bulls Island and Botany Bay Island. The latter can be reached in just over an hour by car, then a short walk (follow signs to Edisto Island, then to Botany Bay Plantation Reserve). It makes an excellent day trip, paired with dinner at the Old Post Office on your return.
Bulls Island’s boneyard is vast, and accessible only by a 30-minute boat ride. Take Coastal Expeditions’s $40 ferry to this pristine wildlife refuge, where you’ll see alligators and birds galore on a hike from the landing through the island’s interior, before emerging on the scenic beach. (You can swim here, too, so bring a suit and a towel.)
Seeing a boneyard beach also gives new perspective to a visit to Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island, or Folly Beach—were it not for the houses, seawalls, and groins fortifying these fragile islands, they’d look like Bulls and Botany Bay islands do today.
