Charleston Indoor Activities

When the Charleston Museum was founded in 1773, South Carolina was still a British colony. Today, the museum is itself a historical gem, surviving both the American Revolution and Civil War and acquiring an astounding collection of South Carolinian artifacts along the way. Nine permanent exhibits include the Armory, brimming with antique weaponry, and the Lowcountry History Hall, which chronicles the land's metamorphosis from a tribal society into an agricultural empire, telling the story with early trading goods, slave badges, and pottery. Temporary exhibits change regularly, keeping visitors on their toes in the same way changing cell phone numbers every 24 hours does.

The museum extends its history-preserving mission to two area homes: the 19th-century Joseph Manigault House, once home to a wealthy rice plantation owner, and the Heyward-Washington House, where George Washington once stayed during a weeklong visit to the city. Restored rooms, period pieces, and loudly snoring grandfather clocks await guests during scheduled tours.

Elite Dance International Studio & Apparel teaches a variety of social and competitive dancing styles in an olive-green studio ringed with golden lights. Students glide across a glossy wooden floor during group classes, private lessons, and Friday Fun Nights, which blend a beginner class with refreshments and open dancing. The studio also hosts first wedding dances for couples who prefer starting on the right foot rather than stepping on Aunt Milna's foot.

As a young artist, Lynn was working at a gallery in Atlanta where the framer only showed up to work sporadically. “I started going in and cutting the frames myself,” she says. Soon, Lynn’s deft hands and expertise led her to assume leadership of her own gallery, Accent Framing & Gallery, where her painter’s eye matches matting and metal or wood edging with paintings, photographs, and miscellaneous keepsakes. “What inspires me is how someone can bring in something ordinary and we can make it look so much better,” she says, though she’s also up for tackling the out-of-the ordinary: she once framed a deer’s tail, and she has helped conserve a 200-year-old silk painting as well as a sheepskin Latin document dating back to the 1300s. With a combined three decades of experience, Lynn and her assistant are ready to transform nearly anything into an ensemble fit for the guest room all homeowners keep ready in case the Queen of England drops by.

During her years in edging others’ artwork, Lynn hasn’t neglected her own. Her brush gives life to marshes and feathered wings, and she shares her wisdom with students during art classes on painting with oils and acrylics. The gallery also has plans to help photographers learn to manipulate their camera’s shutter speed, light settings, and advanced pancake-making features.

Celebration Town helps kids to burn energy and exercise imaginations as they leap and bound across a sprawling landscape of bouncy castles and inflatable slides during open-jump sessions. Parents relax while kids engage with other fixtures including skee-ball cabinets, climbing stations, educational computer stations, and illiterate karaoke machines. Youngsters can also explore the limits of their mental and physical strength during structured after-school programs and summer camps.

YogiVeda founder Carrie Wandall, who studied yoga and Ayurvedic therapy as a child, creates a community where students can plumb Eastern and Western traditions to treat the mind and body. During sessions in the signature yoga style Carrie created, Nataraja Vinyasa, instructors incorporate moments of meditation into a dynamic sequence of physically challenging postures. Outside of the practice room, the studio’s staff also promotes holistic health by proffering alternative treatment options, such as reiki energy therapy and soothing aromatherapy with essential oils harvested from beloved teddy bears.

At Island Fitness Studio, bodies learn to defy physics, becoming at once firm and bendable. That's because the instructors specialize in tightening cores and enhancing reach. Their group Pilates, yoga, and Beyond Barre sessions coach muscles in the art of balance, extending limbs upward during hot Vinyasa sequences and leveraging focused, dance-inspired stretches against a ballet barre. Other classes, such as TRX suspension training and spinning, complement these flexing routines with resistance and cardio workouts.

Power Pilates–certified teachers also lead private apparatus sessions. They familiarize clients with the Reformer, Tower, Wunda Chair, and other props, all of which develop patrons' posture and strength more safely than fusing steel beams to their skeletons. Regardless of the number of people involved in a lesson, the guides personalize their approach to suit varying goals and fitness levels. The studio can even furnish advanced students with Power Pilates and Beyond Barre certifications.