Myrtle Beach, SC Outdoor Activities

Cocaptains Chip Deaton and Scott Connelly anchored their individual childhood experiences on the water to their passion for aquatic surfaces when they founded Charleston Water Taxi. Here, the duo helms two types of vessels to whisk passengers around Charleston's pristine waterways, navigating through their harbor route. Aboard the intimate boats, riders glimpse some of the city's most eye-plucking sights, such as the Civil War–era Castle Pinckney and the newly constructed Cooper River Bridge—a popular haunt for dolphins who frolic about or shout at humans to speak dolphin when they’re on the sea.

Purchased by philanthropist Archer Huntington and his wife, Anna Hyatt Huntington, in 1929, the 9,127 acres of forest, swamp, rice fields and beachfront that became Brookgreen Gardens were originally intended to become the couple’s winter home. Instead, they created a nonprofit institution in 1931 that transformed the property into the first sculpture garden in the United States. Brookgreen Gardens now adorns more than 300 acres of gardens and facilities with more than 1,400 works. A National Historic Landmark, Brookgreen Gardens fields a staff that edifies guests on the property’s plantation history and its gardens’ evolution during seasonally shifting programs, exhibitions, and tours. A medieval, seven-circuit Chartres labyrinth lures visitors with its serene quietude, an exhibit chronicles the narrative of the land from Native American occupation through the present, archeological sites unearth information about life on rice plantations, and the museum’s zoo beckons the intellectually curious with its critters.

On the same strip that Myrtle Beach Zipline Adventures inhabits today, the beloved Pavilion amusement park entertained beach-going families for 58 years. A sextet of 600-foot zip lines renews this sense of excitement as riders fly downward at up to 40 miles per hour, much like an energy-drink-fueled seagull that spots an unattended sandwich. To seal the ride’s thrill for patrons young and old, flights end with a free fall from a 60-foot tower.:m]]