A Guide to Myrtle Beach

Pristine white sands stretch for 60 miles down South Carolina’s coastline, known as The Grand Strand, the widest stretch at North Myrtle Beach. Small resorts and seaside villages are dotted along the coast with Myrtle Beach at the hub of The Grand Strand. It is a brash seaside holiday resort, a mega entertainment centre, with rampant commercial developments stretching 20 miles down the coast from the North Carolina border, environmentally-unfriendly.

Myrtle Beach bursts at the seams in the summer months as it is a great playground for families with small children - the buckets and spades brigade - and for over-spirited students and teenagers who party and drink themselves into a frenzy, possibly giving the resort the reputation for being a paradise for poseurs. Sun, sand, sea and fun are the order of the day.

The vast Pavilion Amusement Park offers all one would expect - funfairs, water parks, fast-food joints, restaurants, bars, arcades. There is crazy golf, parasailing and shipwreck diving to entertain the more energetic; shopping malls and museums for the more sedate and over a hundred championship golf courses for serious golfers. Nature trails, fishing and camping are provided by the Myrtle Beach State Park when one is weary of the laid-on commercial entertainment.

For excellent seafood restaurants, visit Murrell’s Inlet, a nearby fishing port.

Pawley’s Island, a secluded resort close by, offers a holiday at a slower pace.

Between these two places is a former rice and indigo plantation, the beautifully landscaped Brookgreen Gardens which will restore one’s soul after all the hard-core commercialism.

Myrtle Beach is definitely not intended as a quiet or restful holiday destination, but if it’s razzmatazz you want, you’ve found the right place!