Beaufort, SC does everything Charleston does with half the crowds and a lower price tag

Beaufort’s been here since 1711

You probably know Charleston. You might know Savannah.

But halfway between them, sitting on Port Royal Island in the middle of South Carolina’s Sea Islands, there’s a city that does everything those two do, just without the crowds and the price tag.

Beaufort’s entire downtown is a National Trust historic district, and you can walk every block of it in an afternoon. The oak-lined streets hang heavy with Spanish moss, and the pace here runs slow on purpose.

What you find when you start looking goes back over 300 years.

Three centuries of history on one small island

Beaufort is South Carolina’s second-oldest city, right behind Charleston. The British chartered it in 1711 and named it for Henry Somerset, the 2nd Duke of Beaufort.

But the Spanish and French tried to settle this stretch of coast as far back as the 1500s, and both failed. By the time the Civil War started, Sea Island cotton and rice had made the city rich.

That wealth didn’t last long.

Union forces captured Beaufort in 1861, making it one of the first Southern cities held by the North.

Antebellum mansions line the streets of The Point

The National Historic Landmark District covers 304 acres, and the best stretch sits in The Point, a neighborhood at the eastern edge of downtown.

Grand antebellum homes line the blocks there, most of them facing south on wide lots with porches built to catch the river breeze.

St. Helena’s Episcopal Church, founded in 1712, still stands as the oldest church in the city. You can walk the whole district on foot, hop on a golf cart tour, or ride through by horse-drawn carriage.

The only national park about Reconstruction is here

No other national park in the country tells the story of Reconstruction.

President Obama established the site in January 2017, and Congress redesignated it as a national historical park in 2019.

The park spreads across four locations in Beaufort County, including the Old Beaufort Firehouse visitor center at 706 Craven Street.

One of those sites is Camp Saxton in Port Royal, where thousands of formerly enslaved people heard the Emancipation Proclamation read aloud on New Year’s Day, 1863.

Penn Center kept Gullah culture alive for 160 years

Penn Center on St. Helena Island started in 1862 as one of the first schools in the South for formerly enslaved people. The 50-acre campus is now a National Historic Landmark District.

The Gullah people of the Lowcountry have held on to more of their West and Central African heritage than any other African American community in the country.

Storytelling, cuisine, music, crafts, and language all survive here on the Sea Islands. The York W. Bailey Museum on campus houses artifacts and exhibits on Gullah Geechee history.

Swing on the riverfront at Chambers Waterfront Park

Bay Street runs along the Beaufort River, and right in the middle of it sits Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.

You’ll find a promenade, swings, gardens, a playground, and a marina all packed into one stretch of riverfront.

The park pulls double duty as the social center of downtown, hosting festivals, concerts, and community events through the year. Shops, galleries, and restaurants line the surrounding streets.

Stick around for sunset, when the light hits the Woods Memorial Bridge and the Intracoastal Waterway.

Five miles of wild beach at Hunting Island

About 16 miles east of downtown, Hunting Island State Park draws more than a million visitors a year, making it the most visited state park in South Carolina.

The park covers around 5,000 acres across one of the few remaining undeveloped Sea Islands on the coast. Five miles of beach run along maritime forest and salt marsh.

Loggerhead sea turtles nest here. Deer, alligators, bald eagles, and pelicans share the land.

You can camp with water and electric hookups or hit the hiking and biking trails.

A lighthouse they moved a mile and a half inland

The original Hunting Island Lighthouse went up in 1859. Confederate forces destroyed it during the Civil War.

Builders put a new one up in 1875, this time using interchangeable cast-iron sections so they could take it apart and move it if they had to. They had to.

Severe beach erosion forced the whole structure 1.3 miles inland in 1889. It’s the only publicly accessible lighthouse in South Carolina.

A restoration project has the tower closed right now, but you can view it from the grounds and try virtual reality headsets at the Visitor Center.

Bike 10 miles on a trail named one of the best

The Spanish Moss Trail runs 10 miles along the old Magnolia Line Railroad, which operated from 1870 to 2003. The paved path stretches 12 feet wide and connects the City of Beaufort to the Town of Port Royal.

You’ll pass through moss-draped neighborhoods, salt marshes, and old railroad structures, including a warehouse from 1901. Outside magazine named it one of the 10 best urban walking trails in the country.

Walkers, runners, and cyclists all share the route.

Paddle the salt marshes with dolphins and eagles

The Beaufort River and its tidal creeks are full of bottlenose dolphins, bald eagles, and ospreys.

Kayaking and paddleboarding put you right in the middle of the salt marshes and estuaries, and boat tours leave straight from the downtown marina at Waterfront Park.

The whole area sits within the ACE Basin, one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the East Coast.

If you’d rather fish, Hunting Island has a 950-foot pier, and tidal creeks throughout the area give you plenty of spots to cast a line.

Frogmore stew has no frogs in it

The signature dish around here is Frogmore Stew: shrimp, corn on the cob, sausage, and potatoes, all boiled together. No frogs involved.

The name comes from Frogmore, a small community on St. Helena Island, and Richard Gay of the Gay Fish Company gave it that name back in the 1960s.

Shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, and dishes rooted in Gullah cooking traditions round out the local menu. Every year, the Beaufort Water Festival puts on a Lowcountry Supper with over 1,000 pounds of local shrimp.

Pat Conroy wrote his best books about this town

Pat Conroy set several of his most famous novels in and around Beaufort, including The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini.

The Lowcountry landscape shaped his writing for decades, starting when he began his teaching career in the area. His literary center at 601 Bladen Street holds his writing desk, personal library, and other artifacts.

It’s South Carolina’s first affiliate of the American Writers Museum. You can visit for free, Thursday through Sunday.

Visit Beaufort, South Carolina

You’ll find Beaufort on Port Royal Island, about 70 miles south of Charleston and 45 miles north of Savannah, Georgia. The closest major airport is Savannah/Hilton Head International, roughly an hour’s drive away.

Downtown is walkable, and most of what you’ll want to see sits within a short drive. Hunting Island State Park is about 16 miles east.

St. Helena Island and Penn Center are just minutes from the city center. Check the official website for seasonal events and visitor guides.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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