Nightlife

Barefoot Landing, Hwy. 17 South, straddling the civic boundary between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, has 13 restaurants; a variety-music venue known as the Alabama Theatre , an endlessly popular nightclub (the House of Blues), and a reptilian theme park known as Alligator Adventure. Everything about this place, frankly, is well orchestrated except for parking, which, during peak seasons and weekends, is very, very hard to come by.

Broadway at the Beach, lying beside the Route 17 Bypass, between 22nd and 29th boulevards, is one of the best-accessorized, most glittery, and most-visited shopping, dining, and entertainment venues in South Carolina. It's a less glossy, and much less expensive, version of Disney World, but with very few of the rides and less emphasis on myths and legends. It sprawls across a vast acreage bisected with saltwater estuaries and lakes in the heart of town. Some of its most visible features include the most famous chain restaurant in town, the pyramid-shaped Hard Rock Cafe, as well as Margaritaville, Murray Brothers Caddy Shack, MagiQuest, and Ripley's Aquarium where fish swim in translucent turquoise waters behind a thick layer of Plexiglas. There are more than 100 shops, 20 restaurants and food outlets, a free-standing IMAX theater, a 16-screen conventional movie theater, a gaggle of theme-oriented bars (many with big-screen TVs for sports-watching), and a collection of late-night bars and dance clubs -- each within a cluster known as Celebrity Circle -- that includes everything from country-western line dancing to Latino salsa.

A disco favored by the young is Club Kryptonite, where action heroes aren't necessarily on-site, despite the disco's name. After around 8:30pm, the bars that line Celebrity Circle fill up. For more information, go to www.broadwayatthebeach.com.