Myrtle Beach is the centre of the GRAND STRAND, a continuous arc of about sixty miles of Atlantic beach running from the North Carolina line down to Georgetown, South Carolina. That is the first thing to understand, because almost everything written about this destination treats it as a single place and it is really a strip with several quite different sections. The experience of booking a high rise above the boardwalk in the first photograph and the experience of booking a quiet cottage in Pawleys Island forty minutes south have very little in common. Choosing the right stretch is the whole job.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Roman Trail earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.
We receive a fee when you get a quote from World Nomads using this link. We do not represent World Nomads. This is not a recommendation to buy travel insurance.
What Is Here
MYRTLE BEACH PROPER IS THE BOARDWALK, THE HIGH RISES AND THE NOISE. This is the busiest section and it is unapologetically a resort: a 1.2 mile boardwalk and promenade rebuilt in 2010, an oceanfront SkyWheel, amusement arcades, mini golf by the dozen, and a wall of hotels directly on the sand. If what you want is to walk out of a lobby onto a beach with a funnel cake in reach, this is correct and you should book here. If you want quiet, you must not.
NORTH MYRTLE BEACH IS THE FAMILY AND BEACH-HOUSE END. A separate city, formed from four old beach towns including OCEAN DRIVE, where the shag was danced into South Carolina's state dance and where the dance clubs still run. Lower rise, more rental houses, calmer, and the Cherry Grove end has a tidal marsh behind it that is better for kayaking than anything in the city.
THE PIERS ARE THE SECOND PHOTOGRAPH AND THEY ARE WORKING FISHING PIERS. Several survive along the strand, most of them charging a small fee to walk out and a larger one to fish, and they are the best place to understand the shoreline: you can see the sandbars, the gaps between them, and the water moving sideways. That matters for the rip current section below.
MYRTLE BEACH STATE PARK IS THE ANSWER IF YOU WANT THE COAST WITHOUT THE STRIP. Three miles south of the boardwalk, it holds one of the last maritime forests on this coast, a mile of undeveloped beach, a fishing pier and a campground, and it is the one place on the Grand Strand where you can see what the whole coast looked like before 1950. Entry is a small day fee.
AND MURRELLS INLET IS WHERE THE FOOD IS. A working fishing village twenty minutes south with a half mile boardwalk over the marsh and a row of seafood restaurants that are a different proposition from the buffets on the strip. BROOKGREEN GARDENS, across the road, is a sculpture garden and former rice plantation that is one of the genuinely distinguished things in the region, and HUNTINGTON BEACH STATE PARK next to it is the best birdwatching on this coast.
ONE THING WORTH SAYING PLAINLY: THE ECONOMY HERE IS GOLF AND IT SHAPES THE CALENDAR. The Grand Strand has something close to ninety courses and the spring and autumn shoulder seasons are golf seasons, which is why rates do not fall as much in March and October as the weather would suggest.
When to Go
May, early June, and September to mid-October are the best weeks. Water warm enough to swim, air in the mid twenties, and the summer crowds either side of you.
July and August are hot, humid and full. Low thirties with high humidity, afternoon thunderstorms most days, and the strip at capacity. The ocean is at its warmest, around 28 degrees.
HURRICANE SEASON RUNS FROM JUNE TO NOVEMBER AND PEAKS FROM MID-AUGUST TO EARLY OCTOBER. This coast is genuinely exposed and has been hit. See the safety section; the practical answer is travel insurance that covers weather and a willingness to move your dates.
November to March is mild, cheap and not a beach holiday. Daytime in the low to mid teens, water too cold to swim, many attractions on reduced hours, and the golf courses busy. Pleasant for walking the beach in a coat.
Getting There
Myrtle Beach International Airport is two miles from the boardwalk and has far more direct domestic service than a city this size would normally support, which is the main reason the destination works. Charlotte is about three and a half hours by road, Charleston about two, Raleigh about four.
You will want a car unless you are staying on the boardwalk and never leaving it. The strand is sixty miles long, the good food is twenty minutes south, the state parks are drives, and public transport is a limited bus network. US-17 runs the length of it and jams in season; SC-31, the Carolina Bays Parkway, is the faster inland alternative.
Parking on the oceanfront is metered and enforced in season, and many hotels charge separately for it. Check before booking.
The Myrtle Beach Packing List
Subtropical humidity, strong Atlantic sun, daily summer thunderstorms and an air-conditioned indoors.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is not the obvious garment for a hot beach and earns its place in two specific ways here. The first is the shoulder seasons and winter, when this coast is genuinely cool and windy and a wool layer under a shell is right. The second is the air conditioning, which on this strip is set aggressively enough that moving between a 32 degree beach and a 20 degree restaurant several times a day is the actual thermal challenge, and merino regulates that far better than cotton that is already damp.
A long sun hoodie is the most practical sun garment for a beach holiday, because reapplying sunscreen to your shoulders every two hours for a week does not happen in practice. With it a wide brim UPF 50 sun hat.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, packable, for the afternoon thunderstorms, which arrive fast and hard and pass.
From November to March a Columbia Fast Trek II fleece, since the beach in January is a coat-and-wind proposition.
An insulated water bottle, which in this humidity matters more than in dry heat because you will lose a great deal and feel it less.
Not linked and worth packing: FLIP FLOPS AND A PAIR OF PROPER WALKING SHOES, since the boardwalk and the piers are not barefoot surfaces; A RASH TOP for children and for anybody spending hours in the water, which is better sun protection than anything you can apply; INSECT REPELLENT FOR THE MARSH SIDE, because Murrells Inlet and the Cherry Grove marsh have mosquitoes and biting midges at dusk even when the beach does not; AND A BEACH BAG YOU CAN CLOSE, for the sand and for the gulls, which here are practised thieves.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Myrtle Beach
Emergency numbers: 911 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile. Myrtle Beach has its own police department and the city runs a beach patrol with lifeguards on the main stretches in season; the United States Coast Guard covers the water and is reached through 911 or on VHF channel 16.
RIP CURRENTS ARE THE HAZARD THAT ACTUALLY KILLS PEOPLE ON THIS COAST AND THE ESCAPE IS COUNTERINTUITIVE. The Grand Strand's sandbars create gaps that funnel water back out to sea in narrow fast channels, and they look like the calmest, least choppy water on the beach, which is exactly why swimmers choose them. A rip does not pull you under, it pulls you out. THE RESPONSE IS NOT TO SWIM AGAINST IT: swim parallel to the beach until you are out of the channel, then come in at an angle, or float and signal if you cannot. The beach patrol flies a flag system and posts the daily risk, and the National Weather Service office in Wilmington issues the rip current outlook for this stretch; read it on the morning of a beach day rather than once a week. SWIM WHERE THE LIFEGUARDS ARE, which on a sixty mile strand is a minority of it. LIGHTNING IS THE SECOND KILLER and the season is long, with thunderstorms on most summer afternoons; the rule is thirty minutes indoors after the last thunder, a beach and a pier are among the worst places to be, and a lifeguard clearing the water is not being cautious. HURRICANES run June to November with the peak from mid-August to early October, and the operative facts are that Horry County issues the evacuation orders and that leaving late in a coastal evacuation on US-17 is the dangerous version; the National Hurricane Center is the track to watch. THE SUN IS STRONGER THAN IT FEELS with a sea breeze on you. And the water carries ordinary marine life: jellyfish in late summer, and stingrays in the shallows, where the SHUFFLE rather than the step is the local habit.
US State Department travel advisory: there is none, and this is not an omission. The State Department issues travel advisories for other countries, not for the United States itself, so no US advisory for this destination exists to link. In its place, the Government of Canada advice for the United States gives an equivalent third-country assessment.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits. The FCDO names no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States. The same advice also covers Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Main hospital: Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach is the area's trauma centre with a 24 hour emergency department, with Conway Medical Center inland and Tidelands Georgetown Memorial at the southern end of the strand. Urgent care clinics are plentiful along US-17 and are the right choice for jellyfish stings, sunburn and minor injuries rather than the emergency department. Dial 911 for any emergency. This is the single biggest practical difference for a visitor: there is no public health system, an emergency room visit without insurance can run into thousands of dollars, and an ambulance is billed separately and is not free. Comprehensive travel insurance with a high medical limit is not optional in the United States, and you should carry your policy number and the insurer's 24 hour number somewhere you can reach them. Urgent care clinics handle anything short of an emergency far more cheaply and quickly than an emergency room, and are the right choice for a sprain, an infection or stitches.
And a local law that catches visitors: THE SEA OATS IN THE THIRD PHOTOGRAPH ARE PROTECTED BY SOUTH CAROLINA LAW. Their roots hold the dune line together and the dune line is what stands between the hotels and a storm surge, so picking them or walking on the dunes is both destructive and an offence. Use the marked crossovers. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources covers that along with the beach and marsh regulations, and sea turtle nesting season from May to October brings a separate set of rules about lights and holes in the sand.
Official health authority: the CDC travellers' health pages, the US federal health authority for visitors. covers the national health information service and travel health guidance
Embassy contact: the United States is the host country, so there is no US embassy to contact. Your own country's embassy is in Washington DC, with consulates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Boston. Find yours before you travel and save the number.
Official tourism authority: Brand USA, the national tourism marketing body. covers the Southeast, and the Myrtle Beach area tourism office publishes the beach patrol flag status, the seasonal attraction hours and the parking zones, which are the details that change
Takeaways
Sixty miles of coast, not one town. Choose your stretch before you book.
Rip currents look like the calm water. Swim parallel to the beach, never against.
Hurricane season peaks mid-August to early October. Insure for weather.
The sea oats are protected by state law. Use the dune crossovers.
Solo women safety assessment: Myrtle Beach is easy and unremarkable to travel alone, with the ordinary caveats of a large American resort strip. The visitor economy is the whole economy, the boardwalk and the oceanfront are busy and lit well into the evening, eating alone is completely normal, and the main practical annoyance is that the destination is built around families and groups rather than solo travellers. Petty theft from cars and from unattended beach bags is the commonest crime and the answer is the obvious one; the nightlife strip at Ocean Drive and the main boardwalk bars carry the usual drink-spiking caution that applies in any resort, which is to watch your own drink and to leave with the people you arrived with. THE REAL RISKS HERE ARE THE WATER AND THE WEATHER. Rip currents are what kill people on the Grand Strand, they look like the calmest water on the beach, and the escape is to swim parallel to the shore rather than against the pull; swim where the lifeguards are, which is a minority of a sixty mile strand, and read the daily rip outlook. Thunderstorms arrive most summer afternoons and a beach or a pier is among the worst places to be in one, so thirty minutes indoors after the last thunder. Hurricane season runs June to November with the peak from mid-August to early October, Horry County issues the evacuation orders, and the dangerous version is leaving late. Jellyfish come in late summer and stingrays lie in the shallows, where shuffling rather than stepping is the habit. 911 WORKS, THE CITY RUNS A BEACH PATROL, AND THE AREA HAS A TRAUMA CENTRE.
Reading On
Myrtle Beach sits in the middle of the Carolina and Georgia coast and this library covers it closely. The Charleston packing list covers the historic city two hours south, which is the natural pairing for anyone who wants architecture as well as sand, and the Hilton Head packing list covers the quieter, more managed island resort further down the same coast. South again, the Savannah packing list covers the Georgia city across the river. Inland in the same state and the next, the Charlotte packing list and Asheville packing list cover the Carolina piedmont and mountains, and the Raleigh packing list the North Carolina capital. Further down the Atlantic, the Daytona Beach packing list and St Augustine packing list cover the Florida equivalents. For the country, the USA travel guide for women carries the regions, the driving and the seasons in full. For why wool handles a hot beach and a hard-chilled restaurant in the same hour, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection. Further north on the same Atlantic shore, the Virginia Beach packing list covers Virginia's long beach and the naval city behind it.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
