Myrtle Beach is in Horry County (pronounced “O-ree”), with the small city of Conway on the Waccamaw River (15 miles northwest of the beach) acting as the county seat. Other than strolling the pleasant Riverwalk here, lined with good restaurants, it’s worth popping into the county museum, housed in the old Burroughs School built in 1905. The museum is small but contains a fascinating array of exhibits on the area, including the surprising revelation that alligators and even black bears lurk in the nearby woods and creeks. Displays also focus on the southeastern woodland cultures that dominated the coastal plain of South Carolina long before Europeans arrived, and shed light on county namesake Peter Horry (1743–1815), the son of French Huguenot parents and a local hero of the American Revolutionary War.