Charleston has something for everyone, so there’s always plenty to do. But if you get restless for a little more variety, the city’s central location on the South Carolina coast offers plenty of easy day trips to explore the Southeast.

Here are six popular destinations within two hours’ drive of Charleston:

Myrtle Beach with Skywheel, South Carolina

MYRTLE BEACH: The broad, sparkling sands along the “Grand Strand” provide a classic beach experience more commonly associated with Florida or the Jersey shore. Amusement parks, arcades, miniature golf, Ripley’s Aquarium, and a new 1.2-mile boardwalk anchored by the “Skywheel” Ferris wheel make this a popular destination for youngsters and their families. Myrtle Beach is known as the “Golf Capital of America” for its numerous, well-manicured courses. Nightlife includes theaters with live musical performances, fresh seafood restaurants, and clubs where you can learn the Carolina shag – a Southern style of beach dancing that originated in Myrtle Beach. For a more laid-back outing, check out nearby Murrells Inlet (the “Seafood Capital of South Carolina”); the mansions and grounds at Hopsewee Plantation, built in 1735; or the dramatic collection of outdoor figurative sculptures at Brookgreen Gardens.

Hilton Head Harbor with lighthouse

HILTON HEAD ISLAND: Located midway between Charleston and Savannah, Hilton Head is consistently ranked as one of the “Top 10 Best U.S. Islands” by Conde Nast readers. “Golf Island” is home to more than 20 championship courses and regularly hosts the PGA Tour. The island also boasts a number of top-rated tennis facilities, with more than 350 courts in all three Grand Slam surfaces – including covered courts so play can continue during the occasional rain shower. Hilton Head has also been voted one of the Top 10 beaches for families. Explore the tidal waters by kayak or paddleboard, or sail the Atlantic Ocean. Upscale resorts, shopping at 200-plus retail and outlet stores, and more than 250 restaurants complete the picture.

COLUMBIA: The “River City” is the capital of the Palmetto State, drawing visitors to cosmopolitan restaurants, live music, theaters, public art, and historic buildings. Tour the Hampton Preston Mansion and Gardens, originally constructed in 1818. Explore Riverbanks Zoo & Gardens, home to more than 2,000 animals and one of the country’s top botanical gardens. Outdoor enthusiasts can hike or canoe through the old growth bottomland forests of Congaree National Park. Or head to 50,000-acre Lake Murray for boating, fishing and picnicking.

FLORENCE:  A regional center for sports, shopping and the arts, the “Magic City” area offers diverse cultural and recreational opportunities. Hop into a pace car and challenge the Darlington Speedway — the NASCAR track billed as “Too Tough to Tame”. Or for a quieter outing, visit the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden in Bishopville, where the self-taught artist has created a stunning collection of living sculptures.

BEAUFORT: Imagine a colonial seaport with antebellum mansions overlooking the Atlanta Ocean, and you’ll picture Beaufort – the location for such films as “The Big Chill” and “The Great Santini”. Enjoy a horse-drawn carriage ride in the Landmark Historic District, or paddle down the Beaufort River on a guided kayak tour. This charming city provides a perfect quiet Lowcountry getaway.

Augusta, Georgia skyline

 AUGUSTA, GA: The world comes to Augusta each April for the Masters Golf tournament. But there’s plenty to see and do year-round at this thriving city on the Georgia-South Carolina border. Relive the musical career of Augusta’s own James Brown at the Augusta Museum of History, which recently expanded its permanent exhibit honoring the “Godfather of Soul”. Ride a Petersburg flatboat along the historic Augusta Canal. Or look for blue heron, red-shoulder hawks, bobcats and alligators in their natural habitat at 1,100-acre Phinizy Swamp Nature Park.

Once you’ve had a taste of these nearby coastal and inland destinations, it will be time to head back to Charleston for more fun!

If you are interested in visiting Charleston, South Carolina check out our Charleston Vacation Packages and start planning your next vacation!

Bobby L. Hickman is a freelance travel and business journalist based in Atlanta who specializes in the Southeast. His work has appeared in such publications as Southern Living, Georgia Trend, and TravelMuse.com. You can contact him through www.blhickman.com

While visitors to Charleston will find plenty to keep them busy, the city can also serves as a convenient base for trips to other popular destinations in the Southeast. Here are four popular destinations within a few hours’ drive of Charleston.

Horse cart in Savannah, Georgia

SAVANNAH, GA: Charleston and Savannah are only 100 miles apart, but each seaport is unique enough that visitors to either city find plenty of reasons to visit the other. They have much in common – centuries of history, fine restaurants, boutique shopping, low country cuisine, nearby beaches and ghost tours. But the “Hostess City of the South” was spared the destruction that engulfed much of the South during the Civil War, allowing more of its historical homes and estates to remain unharmed. Downtown Savannah has dozens of public squares featuring lush gardens framed by Spanish moss-draped live oaks. Paula Deen lives here, and visitors line up around the block to eat at her “The Lady & Sons” restaurant. The Savannah College of Art and Design adds a hip vibe, powering a youthful community that thrives on indie music venues and art film houses.

World’s Largest Aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia

ATLANTA, GA: The “hub of the New South” has added a thriving urban restaurant scene to its traditional attractions of upscale hotels, Six Flags amusement parks, professional sports teams, and non-stop nightlife at the renovated Underground Atlanta complex. Like Charleston 265 miles away, Atlanta was decimated by the Civil War. However, it has rebuilt itself as a truly international city, as confirmed when it hosted the 1996 Olympic Games. The Georgia Aquarium is the world’s largest, housing more than 120,000 animals — most notably the beluga whale. Tours are also available of such Atlanta icons as the CNN Studios, the World of Coca-Cola and the home where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind.

Biltmore Estate Front Lawn in Asheville, North Carolina

ASHEVILLE, NC: This funky art colony in the Blue Ridge Mountains lures visitors with locally-owned galleries, distinctive restaurants, luxurious accommodations and diverse performance venues. Located 260 miles from Charleston, Asheville sits inside the Pisgah National Forest, where nature lovers enjoy spectacular wilderness scenery while hiking, mountain biking, whitewater rafting, horseback riding and zip lining. The best known attraction here is the elegant Biltmore Home, America’s largest house with 250 rooms. Originally the family home of George Vanderbilt, the Biltmore Estate’s 8,000 acres include acres of gardens, 22 miles of hiking trailers, the Winery at Antler Hill Village, and an outdoor adventure center featuring Segway tours and leisurely paddles  on the French Broad River.

Smoky Mountains

SMOKY MOUNTAINS, TN/NC: Drive another hour west of Asheville and you are in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, America’s visited park. Straddling the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, the park is known for its stunning mountain vistas, roaring streams, diverse ecosystems, and preservation of Southern Appalachian culture. The Appalachian Trail (the 2,000-mile pathway from Georgia to Maine) traverses the park. More than 800 miles of maintained trails allow visitors of all abilities to explore thundering waterfalls and quiet rustic forests. Native American culture is the focus in Cherokee, North Carolina, where the Eastern Band of the Cherokees offer museums, authentic crafts and Harrah’s Casino. Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, are home to the Dollywood amusement park and the area’s largest concentration of outlet shopping malls, while Gatlinburg (located inside the park’s borders) is a vibrant resort town that claims the invention of miniature golf.

Sprinkle in a few other nearby cities – like Augusta, Georgia, home of The Masters golf tournament, and Charlotte, North Carolina, which hosts the U.S. Whitewater Center – and you can find plenty of excursions  to expand on your Charleston experience.

If you are interested in visiting the Charleston, South Carolina area check out our Charleston Vacation Packages and start planning your next vacation!

Bobby L. Hickman is a freelance travel and business journalist based in Atlanta who specializes in the Southeast. His work has appeared in such publications as Southern Living, Georgia Trend, and TravelMuse.com. You can contact him through www.blhickman.com

Charleston, South Carolina, must be pretty special to be voted the “top city destination in the world” by the readers of Conde Nast Traveler. And it is special. From its antebellum architecture and historic attractions to a thriving dining scene, cultural treasures, nearby beaches and world-class golf, Charleston is one of a kind.

History is the major draw here. Founded in 1670, Charleston was the wealthiest seaport south of Philadelphia during Colonial times.  It has survived earthquakes, hurricanes, and attacks from the Spanish, French, Native Americans, pirates, and the British during the Revolutionary War. The Civil War began here when Confederate troops fired the first shots at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. (Fort Sumter is only accessible through boat tours, but it can also been seen clearly from dramatic viewpoints around the harbor such as Battery Park, Patriots’ Park, the USS Yorktown, and the colorful townhouses known as Rainbow Road.) Charleston’s prosperity was wiped out during the years of war and reconstruction. But the city has rebuilt its economy while preserving and restoring its rich architectural heritage.

Cobblestone Street in Charleston

The best time to visit Charleston is spring (April through June), when blooming azaleas, magnolias and wisteria accent cobblestone streets and lush gardens. The weather is mild – the average daily high is 75 degrees and the low is 54, with 52 inches of rain annually. Spring and summer are the busiest seasons, but most summertime visitors hit the nearby beaches to escape the sticky heat. Fall is the shoulder season, so the streets are less crowded. While the weather varies widely in October and November, you can easily enjoy the city’s beauty before grey winter days arrive.

Morris Island Lighthouse in Charleston

Charleston lies where the Ashley and Cooper merge at Charleston Harbor. But within a few miles are the sand dunes, sea oats and calm ocean waves of barrier islands such as Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island and Seabrook Island. Kiawah Island is an upscale retreat with pristine beaches, internationally-known golf courses and sweeping views of the low country marshes. Charming Folly Beach on Folly Island is a popular resort boasting vacation rentals, live music and fresh seafood.

Fresh seafood

Speaking of food: The dominant local style is low country cuisine, which originated in the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia. Low country cuisine combines ingredients commonly found in the area (native seafood such as shrimp, oysters, and crabs, and vegetables including rice, potatoes and okra) through such cultural influences Cajun, Caribbean, Southern and African). She-crab soup, shrimp and grits, and the stew-like low country boil are among the best-loved dishes. Some of the top low country restaurants in the area include 82 Queen and Poogan’s Porch and Slightly North of Broad.

However, Charleston is more than low country cuisine, with a slew of nationally-recognized restaurants and chefs (including three consecutive James Beard award winners). Husk – named best new restaurant in America for 2011 by Bon Appetit – serves bold dishes made only with ingredients grown in the South. FIG was an early farm-to-table restaurant that defines contemporary Charleston with its fresh fish and local vegetables. For dessert, you can’t beat Cupcake, where the name says it all.

Lush vegetation in Charleston

A city with so much history is naturally filled with museums, gardens and well-preserved homes. The Museum Mile is a section of Meeting Street that is home to six museums, five historic houses, four scenic parks and numerous public buildings. Several estates surround the city, such as Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, a former 17,000-acre cotton plantation with a formal garden nestled among moss-draped live oaks. Magnolia Plantation includes a guided tour of the home and a one-hour tram tour of the estate’s gardens, wetlands and marshes. Drayton Hall on the Ashley River is the only plantation to survive both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

Families will enjoy the South Carolina Aquarium on Charleston Harbor, the most visited attraction in Charleston. Nine major exhibit areas allow visitors of all ages to experience the natural environments and aquatic life found in estuaries, mountains and streams across the Palmetto State. At Charles Towne Landing, site of the first English settlement in the Carolinas, youngsters can visit “The Adventure”, a replica of a 17^th century sailing vessel. The landing is also home to the Animal Forest, a natural habitat zoo that features animals such as alligators, black bears, wolves, puma, and bisons that are (or were) indigenous to the region.

The Charleston area offers a rare combination of history, outdoor recreation, Southern charm and cosmopolitan sophistication that will leave you agreeing with savvy travelers that Charleston should be on everyone’s “bucket list”.

Check out California Tours Charleston Vacations and start planning your vacation today!

Bobby L. Hickman is a freelance travel and business journalist based in Atlanta who specializes in the Southeast. His work has appeared in such publications as Southern Living, Georgia Trend, and TravelMuse.com. You can contact him through www.blhickman.com

Breathe. Just breathe.  Skulking across the Capilano Bridge, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, I tell myself not to look down, yet I have to. It is dreamily lush and woody. I must take in the rainforest splendor, but the distance between me and the Capilano River below is a nasty 230 feet. That part I, the acrophobe, do not like.

One foot in front of the other. I have made it across the 450-foot, undulating arm of steel supports.  It was not so bad, and I feel sense of victory, for I did it without beads of sweat breaking across my forehead.  On the way back, another tourist is not so fortunate.  An adorably tiny, young Japanese tourist is clinging onto the steel suspension cable with a grip so tight I think her fingers will not be able to unfurl.  The guide is trying to calm her down, but all she is doing is shaking her head with eyes shut tight crying, “No, no, no!”

Capilano Bridge

Taking a trip this summer with your outdoor lovin’ pals? Look no further than Vancouver where you will be mesmerized by the sheer volume of adrenalin-rushing things to do inside the city and on the outskirts. And yes, if you are like the Japanese tourist described above, you will be relieved knowing low-intensity, non-death defying activities are also in abundance.

While the Capilano Bridge in North Vancouver has been around since 1889, the bridge has become quite the tourist attraction and is now called the Capilano Bridge Park. It has evolved to become a natural adventure zone that includes, as of 2011, Cliffwalk, a series of cantilevered walkways and suspension bridges that jut out from a granite cliff. Also included in the $31 adult admission is the Treetop Adventure, seven suspension bridges that link fir tree to fir tree. While there, families can spend the day watching First Nations performances and bringing their kids to the soaring tree house made with recycled wood.

Also found in North Vancouver is Grouse Mountain, a ski and summer resort replete with a zip line, snow sports, an aerial tram, hiking trails, and casual and fine dining at The Observatory which has 360-degree views.  Both soft and hard core explorers will benefit here, for no one will go home feeling like she was not challenged. The annual Grouse Grind Mountain Run is a 1.8 mile sprint where participants zip straight up the Grouse Mountain. Locals call the incredibly steep trail “nature’s Stair Master.”

Capilano Reservoir – Whistler Mountain

About two-hours outside of Vancouver are the famous communities of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain, both renown for their Olympic level ski mountains. You do remember that the Vancouver and Whistler region hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics, yes? So you are in for a treat when you go skiing here. Everything was remodeled and retooled in time for those games. And the surrounding lodging consisting of condos and hotels was also spiffed up.  Around the Whistler and Blackcomb area are a number of lakes for fishing, boating, and swimming.  Like Grouse Mountain, while known mainly for skiing, the Whistler region is popular in summer as well with many, many activities to enjoy for all ages.

Gondola at Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain

Need another reason to come to Vancouver? Best times to come are winter or summer, all dependent on what you love to do. Several major festivals will show you how Canadians can party with gusto.  In April, the Vancouver Sun Run features some 54,000 runners who will trod the six-mile course. Then in June, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival brings talent out to 40 venues throughout the city.  The same month, the Dragon Boat Festival celebrates with 5,000 dragon boat contenders from around the world.  In the fall, keep on the lookout for the Vancouver International Film Festival and the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival.  And during the holidays, a myriad of celebrations sprout from every suburb and village.

Skiing, hiking, festival hopping.  In winter or summer, you’ve come to the right place for adventures both physical and cultural.  When you plan it right, you can partner a festival with excursions to remember.  For a family trip, multi-generatoinal reunion, guy or girlfriend getaway, Vancouver is suitable for all activity levels and all ages.

For more information about Vancouver, check out California Tours Vancouver Vacations.

Kathy Chin Leong is an award-winning travel journalist who has trekked the world. As founder of www.bayareafamilytravel.com, she is passionate about helping people step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves to try new things and visit new places. Her work can be found in National Geographic Books, Sunset Magazine, and many others.