A Winter Visit to Charleston, SC

Although I grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, I had never been to the larger and more well-known Charleston (South Carolina) until very recently.  The end of 2023 was packed with a lot of travel and visiting family for me, but a highlight of all this running around was our South Carolina adventure where we met up with some of my partner’s family and explored the city.  As this was a short trip (and I was not in charge of the planning), this is less a guide to the city and more just a reflection on my trip and recommendations.  I hope in the future to return and spend more time in Charleston, but until then, here’s the story of this trip!

Day 0: Driving South

I’m beginning this story/itinerary with an odd “Day 0” because the first day of our trip mostly consisted of driving.  I would ordinarily leave this out, but we had a really fun time on this drive, and I wanted to give a quick plug for The Beehive Cafe where we had dinner and the awesome riverside RV Airbnb we stayed at.  These are both about an hour outside of Charlotte, NC, and we loved both of them!  Also, while our dinner at The Beehive Cafe was great, I have to specifically mention the incredible deep-fried Oreos we enjoyed for dessert.  If you find yourself in the area, it’s worth a stop!

Day 1: Congaree National Park

The first “real” day of our Charleston trip started, of course, with breakfast and coffee, which we picked up just outside of Spartanburg, SC at Southern Fuel Coffee.  Their coffee was great, but the real highlight here were the breakfast sandwiches. We loved that these had your normal breakfast sandwich ingredients AND flavored cream cheese on the bagel.  I’ve had a breakfast sandwich, and I’ve had a bagel with cream cheese, but this was a new combo.  We’re also wondering if this is a South Carolina thing because we ran into it again at another restaurant.  In any case, their sandwiches were great, and I would particularly recommend the “A.M. Oinky,” which has ham, cheddar cheese, egg, and brown sugar cream cheese on a cheddar bagel.

After breakfast, our main stop for the day was one I was incredibly excited about: Congaree National Park!  When I mapped out possible routes to Charleston, I got very excited when I realized we could make a stop at Congaree, so we had to do it.    Congaree NP is home to “the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States.”  The park is full of towering trees growing out of its floodplain, and the majority of the park is designated as a wilderness area, which helps to conserve plant and animal biodiversity in this ecosystem. 

We absolutely loved visiting Congaree, and even though we only had a short time in the park, I think it was a perfect little stop!  We spent a bit of time at the Visitor Center learning about the history then did the Boardwalk Loop Trail, which is 2.6 miles long, flat, and handicap accessible.  You can grab a brochure at the Visitor Center for a self-guided tour, and numbered signs along the trail tell you when to read each section.  This trail gave a great overview of the park and was the perfect length for us to stretch our legs before getting back on the road.  I left my good camera behind on this trip and only brought my phone, and though the pictures are nice, I kept wishing I had my real camera to capture some of the birds and scenery in the park.

I also think visiting Congaree in the off-season was the right call.  Although it was a bit stark with no leaves on the trees, we also didn’t have to contend with the humidity or mosquitos that are features of the park in the summer.  Based on average temperatures of the area, visiting from October-April is a good call if you want to avoid the worst of the heat.  Also, because the park is a floodplain, you may want to check with park rangers about trail conditions before venturing out, especially for the more difficult trails.

We reached Charleston in the early afternoon and checked into where we were staying for the night in Mt. Pleasant.  Although we did not spend a lot of time exploring in this area, I did really love Page’s Okra Grill where we had dinner.  My goal in traveling is always to eat the regional food, and this was a great option for that!  I had the Crab Rice with Fried Shrimp, which was phenomenal and satisfied my need to eat seafood while on the coast. 

Day 2: Exploring Downtown

As our first full day in Charleston, I was eager to start this day with a walking tour of downtown.  Breakfast was apparently an important stop before that though, so upon arriving downtown, we initially stopped at Legend Deli for more cream cheese breakfast sandwich bagels.  However, next door to the deli was Breizh Pan Crepes, which makes traditional crêpes like those in Brittany, France, and I couldn’t pass that up.  We ended up getting a duel breakfast that combined both places!

When we at last began our walking tour, I used the French Quarter & Rainbow Row tour from The City Sidewalks, which I kept pulled up on my phone as we explored.  Although there are many options for guided walking tours (including free ones) in Charleston, I wanted the option of exploring at our own pace.  We spent a couple hours exploring downtown on this route.  The Charleston City Market was a particular highlight where we bought the last couple of Christmas gifts we needed.  The City Market was established in the 1790s and stretches for four city blocks.  I was surprised to learn that the vendors are primarily local artisans since I was expecting a farmer’s market (similar to Eastern Market in Detroit).  Although I couldn’t afford one, I loved seeing the woven sweetgrass baskets, which is a centuries old craft and specialty of the region.  If I make it back to Charleston in the future, I will absolutely save up a bit of money to buy one of these.

We also spent a good portion of our time on this walk along the waterfront, which was chilly enough in December that I needed my sweatshirt. I loved the waterfront gardens, which reminded me a bit of European city design.  One of the things I thought about while exploring downtown was that it seemed like when Charleston was a new city, they were eager to establish themselves as being on par with elegant European cities.  The gardens along the waterfront were similar, I thought, to estate gardens in France and Italy, and the French Quarter felt like an Americanized version of Paris’s Latin Quarter.  Of course, this Antebellum elegance is marred by the existence of the Old Slave Mart and The Provost Dungeon.  If anything, a walk through the beautiful parts of downtown also comes with inescapable reminders of why 1700s Charleston had such wealth – the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. 

Throughout my brief time in Charleston, I was very interested in how the city interprets its history.  So much of its modern, tourist economy seems to rely on the beautiful and fun parts of the city’s history – gorgeous architecture, ghost and pirate stories, and good old Southern hospitality.  But slavery is inseparable from all of that, and it was clear that there have been efforts to make that part of the history more apparent, including historical markers downtown and a few panels in the museum at Fort Sumter.  Although I was unable to visit it on this trip, the International African American Museum in Charleston also opened to much acclaim in June 2023.  My visit was definitely brief and limited, but the impression I got is that it’s possible to have widely different experiences when visiting the city.  You can go there to learn, but you can just as easily ignore almost all of those difficult and complicated bits of history as well.  As a lover of history, I think it is important that tourists come prepared to confront these legacies, but the city of Charleston itself seems to have mixed opinions on how much it is willing to discuss its past.  For myself, at least, a future trip to Charleston will definitely involve more history.

After a bit of time to relax in the afternoon, we had dinner at Queology, a popular BBQ restaurant on the waterfront.  My favorite part of this meal was the Palmetto Punch I had to drink, which had the fun tropical flavors I love in any cocktail.  It was a Wednesday night in December, so we were one of only a few occupied tables at the restaurant and had a fun time talking with our waiter.  After dinner, we stopped by Savannah’s Candy Kitchen for a quick dessert before heading to Escape in 60, which was my first time doing an escape room.  All in all, was a fun way to spend the evening!

Day 3: Fort Sumter

Our last full day in Charleston was also definitely the busiest!  After breakfast, we headed back to the waterfront to catch the first ferry of the day to Fort Sumter.  This was another site I was excited to visit, and it turned out to be our biggest adventure of the trip.

• Just a note, you have to pay to visit Fort Sumter because of the ferry ride, and a National Parks Pass does not waive this cost. Be sure to book your ferry tickets in advance, especially in the summer. You can also visit Fort Moultrie while in Charleston, but we did not have time for it. Entrance to Fort Moultrie is $10/person but this is covered by a National Parks Pass

The attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 marked the beginning of the American Civil War and is one of the most significant events in the history of Charleston, SC.  Although I was generally familiar with this information, I did actually know the details of the attack, so it was interesting to go through the museum’s interpretation of the events leading up to that battle and what happened in the siege itself.  The most interesting bit to me was that Major Anderson was able to take the United States flag with him when he surrendered the fort on April 13, 1861.  Symbolically, on April 14, 1865, after the war ended, Anderson returned with the flag and raised it again over the fort.  This was a fairly significant celebration, but few people know about or remember it because later that same night, President Lincoln was assassinated.  It seems metaphorically resonant to me that this act demonstrating the country’s remaining divisions is the one remembered by the history books more so than the re-raising of the flag that was meant to symbolize unity.

Like at Gettysburg, I found the grounds of the fort to be a solemn, contemplative place, especially with chilly winds blowing across the harbor.  But, to be honest, I didn’t have a lot of time to be contemplative because a main part of our trip involved problems with the ferry.  We were delayed getting off the boat when we arrived because the engine died a few feet shy of the docking point.  The staff told us that they would take care of the problem in some way while we explored the grounds of the fort, so I didn’t think much about it, especially since we were eager to get off the boat.

One of the really cool parts about visiting Fort Sumter on the first boat of the day is that they recruit volunteers to help raise the flag above the fort, and we wanted to be part of that.  Once the flag was in the air, we split off in different directions to explore for the allotted hour, but about 40 minutes into that time, I noticed the flag coming back down, which is supposed to happen during the last tour of the day.  As it turns out, our group was both the first and last on this particular day because the ferry’s engine refused to work. 

As passengers returned to the boat, we were herded to the bottom deck to wait while another ferry came alongside ours.  The two boats were somehow tied together, and they laid a ramp between the decks.  Once it was all safe and secure, the entire boat went single file across the ramp onto the back-up ferry for the ride back to shore.  Looking back, it was all completely fine and a little funny, but at the time, I was wondering if I might have to swim back to shore if something went wrong. 

Don’t let this dissuade you from visiting Fort Sumter though!  According to the staff I talked to, this has not happened before, at least while any of them have been working there.  The entire crew was also great at their jobs and did an excellent job of fixing the problem and keeping all the passengers safe and calm.  The docents also filled in some of the extra time by sharing additional fun stories and answering questions about Fort Sumter’s history.  Even with the boat issues, I would still completely recommend a visit!

We mostly took the afternoon to rest then had a nice (but pricey) dinner at Magnolia’s.  While my food was absolutely delicious, this is outside of my normal price range, and I would be okay with skipping it on a return visit.  If you’re looking for some very fine dining though, make a reservation and enjoy!  Our last event of the day was a classic for Charleston tourists: A ghost tour.  I’m not always the biggest fan of paranormal tours, but I actually really enjoyed this one with Old South Carriage Co.  Our tour was about 40 minutes and ended up feeling more like a history tour with a couple of local legends, which is much more my style!  It was also really fun to ride in the horse drawn carriage around all the historic buildings!  If you’re not interested in a ghost tour, there are also daytime carriage tours that focus just on the history.

We ended the night with drinks and live music at Tommy Condon’s Irish Pub, a historic hangout that our carriage driver mentioned.  It was a nice little nightcap to end a very eventful day and a fun trip!

Final Thoughts

Charleston, South Carolina is a city with a lot to offer, and I really enjoyed getting a little taste of it on this trip!  We ate some really amazing food and did several fun activities that I would recommend to anyone spending a few days in the area. 

This was actually my second trip to South Carolina in 2023, and I’m looking forward to more trips there in the future, including more time in Charleston!  One thing I really like about this state (as well as, presumably, other parts of the southeast that I’m less familiar with) is that it’s a great place for winter travel. Although things may be a bit grayer than the popular summer photos, it’s still warm enough that you can basically do all the same things you would at any other time of year.  You should be sure to bring a light jacket, but generally speaking, I love South Carolina for a winter trip!  It’s all the fun with less of a crowd and no heat or mosquitos.

While on this trip, I learned new things, visited some awesome sites, and generally enjoyed getting to know this city.  I hope to go there again to see and do even more!