73 miles NE of Downtown Charleston
Just 13 miles north of Georgetown and one of the oldest resorts in the South, Pawleys Island has been a popular hideaway for vacationers for more than 3 centuries. Over the years, everyone from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt to Winston Churchill has visited. During the 18th century, rice planters made the island their summer home so that they could escape the heat and humidity of the Lowcountry and enjoy ocean breezes. Storms have battered the island, but many of the weather-beaten old properties remain, earning the island the appellation “arrogantly shabby.”
Today the barrier island is less than 4 miles long and mostly just one-house wide, separated from the mainland by a salt marsh and accessible by two short causeways. The beaches here are among the best maintained, least polluted, and widest along coastal South Carolina; however, access to public beach areas is severely limited.
