There’s a certain kind of arithmetic every family does at the kitchen table in July. School starts soon. The summer went too fast. One more trip would be perfect — but the budget has opinions. Along most of the American coastline, that math gets ugly in a hurry. On the Grand Strand, it has always worked out a little differently, and now one of the country’s most trusted travel publications has put a number on it.

Travel + Leisure has ranked Myrtle Beach No. 8 on its list of the 10 Most Affordable Places to Travel in the U.S. this August — a national roundup of destinations where a round-trip flight and a night’s hotel stay average under $500. Myrtle Beach came in at $486, sharing the list with big names like Orlando, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Austin.

Look closer at the list and something stands out: among all ten destinations, Myrtle Beach is the only true beach town on the Atlantic. The others are cities — wonderful ones, many of them sweltering through triple-digit August heat — while the Grand Strand offers sixty miles of ocean, a breeze off the water, and the whole last-blast-of-summer package at a price that made a national value list.

Here’s what the recognition covers, what Travel + Leisure singled out, and how to turn that headline number into an even better real-world vacation.

The Ranking: No. 8 in America at $486

The list, published by Travel + Leisure in June 2026, wasn’t a matter of opinion — it was built on data. Working from Kayak flight and hotel searches conducted May 1–26, 2026, for travel throughout August, the publication identified the U.S. destinations where average round-trip airfare plus an average one-night hotel stay came in under $500. Kayak’s travel trends team noted that travelers can save up to nine percent on domestic flights by pushing their trip later in the season rather than fighting the peak-summer weeks — which is exactly the window this list captures.

Myrtle Beach’s $486 figure earned it the No. 8 spot nationally. The publication pointed to the destination’s mix of attractions, entertainment, dining, and accommodations — and specifically called out a destination-wide promotion that sweetens the deal further (more on that below).

For a beach destination to make a national affordability list during summer, when coastal prices traditionally peak, says something about how the Grand Strand is built: a deep supply of places to stay, an airport with nonstop service from more than 50 cities keeping fares competitive, and a tourism economy that has always treated value as a point of pride rather than a compromise.

The Full Top 10: Where Myrtle Beach Landed

Here’s the complete Travel + Leisure ranking, with each destination’s average combined cost for a round-trip flight and one-night hotel stay:

Read down that column of city skylines and desert heat, and the Grand Strand entry does its own quiet advertising. Fort Lauderdale is the only other place on the list where the ocean is part of the bargain — and even there, August means South Florida’s rainy season. On the Carolina coast, August means warm water, long evenings, and summer refusing to end just yet.

What Travel + Leisure Highlighted

Beyond the price tag, the publication painted a picture longtime visitors will recognize instantly: long August days spent hopping between the boardwalk, the arcades, the mini-golf courses, and the beach bars, with the waterfront entertainment districts anchoring the evenings.

Two of those anchor districts got named specifically. Broadway at the Beach, the sprawling complex around Lake Broadway in Myrtle Beach, needs little introduction — dining, shopping, nightlife, and attractions in one walkable loop. The second one sits right here in North Myrtle Beach: Barefoot Landing, the waterfront district along the Intracoastal Waterway in the Windy Hill section, where boardwalk-style shopping and restaurants share the property with the House of Blues and Alabama Theatre. For guests staying on the north end of the Strand, national-magazine-worthy entertainment is a five-minute hop from the beach chair.

The article also gave nods to Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach as the classic cool-off-indoors move for families, The Carolina Opry for its dinner-show tradition, and the area’s steadily expanding dining scene — from seafood shacks and Southern staples to newer arrivals like Ole Smoky Distillery. It’s a fair snapshot of a destination where the entertainment inventory runs deeper than any single trip can cover; our full guide to things to do in Myrtle Beach picks up where the magazine left off.

Make More Myrtle Moments: The Deal Behind the Ranking

One detail in the Travel + Leisure write-up deserves its own spotlight: the publication specifically credited Visit Myrtle Beach’s “Make More Myrtle Moments” promotion as a reason August is one of the best times to score a Grand Strand beach deal. The destination-wide campaign bundles offers like extra free nights at participating hotels and resorts across the 60-mile coastline, giving late-summer travelers more vacation for the same budget.

That’s destination marketing doing exactly what it’s supposed to do — and it’s worth pausing on why a national magazine mention like this matters. Third-party recognition from a publication travelers already trust carries a weight no advertisement can buy. When Travel + Leisure tells its readers the Grand Strand delivers value, it reinforces what has always been one of this coast’s strongest competitive advantages, and it reaches travelers at the precise moment they’re weighing where their late-summer dollars go furthest.

For the area’s hotels, restaurants, attractions, and small businesses, that visibility ripples outward all season long. For you, the traveler, it’s simpler: the deals are real, they’re publicized, and August is when they stack up.

Why August Is the Grand Strand’s Best-Kept Value Secret

Locals have known this rhythm for years. The Fourth of July crest passes, the back-to-school calendars start thinning the crowds week by week, and the beach itself doesn’t get the memo — the ocean is at its warmest of the entire year, the days are still long, and the evening air finally softens. By mid-August, you can walk a stretch of Cherry Grove sand at nine in the morning and count the other footprints.

Meanwhile, the economics tilt in the traveler’s favor. Airfares ease as the peak-summer scramble fades — and with Myrtle Beach International connecting nonstop to more than 50 cities, there’s healthy competition keeping those fares honest. Accommodation rates follow the same slope, promotions like Make More Myrtle Moments kick in, and restaurants that required patience in July welcome you right in come August.

Then there’s the calendar. Late summer on the Grand Strand stays busy with live music, fireworks nights, and festival season warming up — the Myrtle Beach events calendar is the place to see what’s on during your week. The destination that Travel + Leisure priced at $486 doesn’t act like a bargain when you’re standing in it.

How to Stretch That Value Even Further

The magazine’s math was built on flights and hotel nights — the standard yardstick for a national comparison. But here’s where a little local knowledge improves on a national headline: for families and groups, a vacation rental often rewrites that equation entirely.

Think about what the hotel model costs a family of six for a week: multiple rooms, every breakfast and lunch out, and everyone living out of suitcases. Now put that same family in an oceanfront rental in North Myrtle Beach. One shared home instead of two or three hotel rooms. A full kitchen that turns breakfast into a $12 grocery run instead of a $70 restaurant tab. A washer and dryer that let everyone pack half as much. Beach chairs and boogie boards already in the garage. Multiply those savings across seven days, and the per-person, per-night cost of a beach week frequently undercuts the hotel route — while delivering more space, more privacy, and the ocean outside the window.

Where you land along the coast shapes the trip, too. Cherry Grove Beach brings the fishing pier and calm, family-friendly channels at the north end. Ocean Drive puts Main Street’s shag clubs and beach-music history within walking distance. Crescent Beach offers wide, quiet sand in the middle of it all, and Windy Hill sits closest to Barefoot Landing — the very district Travel + Leisure name-checked — and the quickest run down to the Myrtle Beach attractions.

An affordable destination, in its most affordable month, with the lodging strategy that stretches a budget furthest. That’s not settling for less vacation. That’s simply doing the kitchen-table math better than everyone else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Book the Beach That Made the List

Travel + Leisure just told the whole country what Grand Strand regulars have known for generations: this coast delivers a real beach vacation at a price that makes sense. The smartest way to claim it is with a home base that stretches every dollar. Thomas Beach Vacations offers oceanfront home rentals where the whole family shares one roof, one kitchen, and one unbeatable view, along with oceanfront condos sized right for couples and smaller crews — across all four North Myrtle Beach sections, with August availability and some of the season’s friendliest rates. Browse availability at www.northmyrtlebeachvacations.com or call our local team at (843) 273-3001 — and squeeze one more week of summer out of the most affordable stretch of beach in America.

Sources: Travel + Leisure, “10 Most Affordable Places to Travel in the U.S. This August” (June 2026, based on Kayak search data); Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce / Visit Myrtle Beach.

Every so often, the rest of the country gets a glimpse of what Grand Strand locals wake up to every morning. Sometimes it’s a postcard shot in a magazine spread. Sometimes it’s a puzzle board on a game show. And on the afternoon of June 9, it was Kelly Clarkson’s studio audience watching the SkyWheel turn against a Carolina-blue sky — sixty miles of coastline compressed into a few minutes of national daytime television.

Myrtle Beach landed a coveted feature on The Kelly Clarkson Show this summer, courtesy of nationally recognized travel expert Emily Kaufman — better known to millions of viewers as The Travel Mom. The segment, which aired June 9 as the finale of her South Carolina coastal road trip series, spotlighted the destination’s family-friendly attractions, oceanfront atmosphere, and famous affordability to an audience of potential travelers from coast to coast.

And Kaufman didn’t just talk about the beach — she brought it into the studio. After wrapping her road trip on the Grand Strand, she surprised two lucky audience members with a $10,000 Myrtle Beach getaway, courtesy of the segment’s sponsor, Take 5. Somewhere out there, two very happy families are packing beach bags right now.

Here’s what the feature covered, why placements like this one keep the Grand Strand in the national spotlight, and how to see everything the cameras captured for yourself — with a quieter home base just up the coast.

What Aired on June 9: The Travel Mom’s South Carolina Road Trip

The Myrtle Beach feature came as the closing chapter of a South Carolina coastal road trip series Kaufman produced for the show — a journey that wound its way along the Palmetto State’s shoreline before finishing where so many family road trips do: on the Grand Strand. The format suited the destination perfectly. Myrtle Beach has always been, at heart, a road trip town — the place families from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and half of the eastern seaboard have been steering toward for generations, coolers packed and radio on.

Visit Myrtle Beach, the area’s destination marketing organization, supported the production with coordination, local logistics, and video assets that helped bring the region to life on screen — the kind of behind-the-scenes teamwork that turns a few minutes of airtime into a genuine showcase.

The studio moment sealed it. Kaufman returned from the road to Kelly Clarkson’s stage and handed two audience members a $10,000 Myrtle Beach vacation, turning a travel segment into the kind of feel-good giveaway daytime television does best — and putting the words “Myrtle Beach” on the lips of everyone watching at home.

Who Is The Travel Mom?

If you’ve watched morning or daytime television at any point in the last three decades, you’ve likely met Emily Kaufman. A pioneer of the family travel beat, she has spent roughly thirty years helping households plan accessible, affordable, memorable vacations — appearing regularly on Good Morning America, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CBS Mornings, and CNN, and currently serving as the travel correspondent for The Kelly Clarkson Show.

That résumé matters for a simple reason: trust. When The Travel Mom tells a national audience that a destination delivers for families — real value, real variety, something for the grandparents and the toddlers alike — travelers listen. It’s third-party validation from one of the most familiar voices in family travel, and Myrtle Beach earned the nod.

Her verdict echoed what generations of returning visitors already know. The Grand Strand’s combination of wide public beaches, attraction-packed entertainment districts, and vacation costs that don’t require a second mortgage has kept it among America’s most visited beach destinations year after year.

What the Feature Showcased

The segment leaned into the icons — the places that define the Myrtle Beach skyline and fill a family’s first-day itinerary.

The Myrtle Beach Boardwalk

The 1.2-mile oceanfront promenade is the destination’s front porch — a stroll past arcades, souvenir shops, ice cream windows, and the sound of waves that never quite leaves the background. It’s the Myrtle Beach that lives in family photo albums, and it photographs just as well for television.

The SkyWheel

Rising nearly 200 feet above the Boardwalk, the SkyWheel is the coast’s unmistakable landmark — climate-controlled glass gondolas turning slowly over the Atlantic, with views that stretch up and down the Strand. When a TV producer needs one shot that says “Myrtle Beach,” this is the one they reach for.

Broadway at the Beach

The sprawling entertainment complex around Lake Broadway packs dining, shopping, nightlife, and attractions into one walkable district — the rare place where a family of four with four different opinions can all get their way in a single evening.

Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach

Anchoring Broadway at the Beach, Ripley’s Aquarium sends visitors along a moving glidepath through an underwater tunnel while sharks and rays sail overhead — reliably the moment when even the teenagers put their phones down. It’s a staple of rainy-day plans and hot-afternoon escapes alike, and a natural pick for a family-focused travel feature.

Beyond the marquee names, the segment captured the thing that’s harder to put in a listicle: the oceanfront atmosphere itself. The wide sand, the pier silhouettes, the particular gold of a Grand Strand evening — the reasons people don’t just visit once.

A Big Year for Myrtle Beach on National Television

The Kelly Clarkson Show feature didn’t arrive in a vacuum. Just a month earlier, Wheel of Fortune devoted an entire week of programming to the destination — Myrtle Beach Family Week, which aired May 4–8, 2026, with family teams competing for prizes that included Myrtle Beach trips, plus a companion sweepstakes that sent five winning families on five-night Grand Strand vacations.

There’s a lovely bit of hometown poetry in that one: Wheel of Fortune’s own Vanna White grew up right here in North Myrtle Beach, and the giveaway invited viewers to come explore her hometown. For a game show watched by millions every weeknight, that’s a full week of the Grand Strand glowing on America’s living room screens.

Put the year’s placements side by side and the pattern is clear:

Two nationally syndicated shows, back to back, both choosing the same stretch of South Carolina coastline as their family-vacation shorthand. In a tourism marketplace where every beach town in America is competing for attention, that’s not luck — it’s a destination whose story keeps proving easy to tell.

Why National TV Coverage Matters for Your Vacation

It’s fair to ask what a talk show segment has to do with your beach week. More than you’d think, actually — and mostly in good ways.

National features introduce the destination to first-time travelers, sure. But they also work on everyone who’s been here before — the family that came in 2019 and keeps meaning to come back, the couple who honeymooned here and wonders if the kids would love it. A trusted voice like The Travel Mom saying “this place delivers” is often the nudge that turns someday into this summer. That awareness ripples outward to the hotels, attractions, restaurants, and small businesses that make up the Grand Strand’s tourism economy — the same ecosystem that keeps the area’s restaurant scene deep, its attractions fresh, and its calendar full.

For visitors, the practical takeaway is timing. Exposure like this tends to show up in demand, especially for summer and early fall. The families who watched that June 9 segment and started planning are booking now — which makes this a smart moment to lock in your own dates rather than waiting for the shoulder-season scramble. Our Myrtle Beach events calendar is a good place to pick your week; the full menu of things to do in Myrtle Beach will fill it.

Seeing the TV-Famous Spots from North Myrtle Beach

Here’s the local’s secret the cameras rarely linger on: you don’t have to stay in the middle of the spotlight to enjoy it. North Myrtle Beach sits about fifteen miles up the coast from the Boardwalk and SkyWheel — close enough for an easy evening outing, far enough that you come home to a quieter stretch of sand, a slower pace, and the kind of beach where your morning coffee comes with more pelicans than people.

Every one of the featured attractions is a straightforward drive down Highway 17 or the Highway 31 bypass. Spend an afternoon at Ripley’s Aquarium and Broadway at the Beach, ride the SkyWheel at dusk when the coast lights up beneath you, walk the Boardwalk with ice cream in hand — then point the car north and trade the bright lights for the sound of the surf outside your window.

Each of North Myrtle Beach’s four sections makes a fine base camp for it. Cherry Grove Beach offers its fishing pier and famously calm, family-friendly waters at the north end. Ocean Drive brings its own slice of television-worthy Americana — Main Street, the shag clubs, and beach music history (this is Vanna White’s hometown turf, after all). Crescent Beach and Windy Hill sit closest to the Myrtle Beach attractions, shaving minutes off the drive to Broadway at the Beach while keeping the wide, relaxed sand that defines the north end of the Strand.

Frequently Asked Questions

See What the Cameras Saw — Then Stay Where the Locals Would

Millions of viewers just discovered what you may already suspect: the Grand Strand delivers a family beach vacation that’s hard to beat. The next move is making it yours. Thomas Beach Vacations offers oceanfront home rentals with room for the whole crew and oceanfront condos perfect for smaller families — across all four North Myrtle Beach sections, each an easy drive from the Boardwalk, SkyWheel, and Broadway at the Beach, and each with the ocean waiting right outside your door. Browse availability at www.northmyrtlebeachvacations.com or call our local team at (843) 273-3001 — and turn the vacation everyone saw on TV into the one your family actually takes.

Sources: Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce / Visit Myrtle Beach announcement; The Kelly Clarkson Show (NBC, aired June 9, 2026); Wheel of Fortune Myrtle Beach Family Week official promotion (May 2026).

Somewhere on the Grand Strand this summer, a kid is going to flush a 7-iron for the first time in their life — really catch it, the way you never forget — while a parent watches from the cart and tries to play it cool. That moment is the whole point of one of the best family deals on the beach, and it won’t cost the family a single extra dollar.

Play Golf Myrtle Beach has officially brought back its summer-long Kids Play Free program for 2026, and the numbers are hard to argue with: junior golfers ages 16 and under play free with a paying adult at more than 50 championship courses across the Myrtle Beach area, running all summer through the peak of family vacation season.

In a destination that proudly calls itself the Golf Capital of the World®, this is the initiative that opens the gates to the next generation — and for visiting families, it quietly transforms the economics of a beach vacation. The rounds that used to be dad’s splurge or grandma’s treat become something the whole crew does together, on the same fairways that host professional and elite amateur events.

Here’s how the program works, where to play near North Myrtle Beach, and how to build a summer trip around it.

How Kids Play Free Works

The concept is refreshingly simple. When an adult books and pays for a round at a participating course, one junior golfer age 16 or under plays free alongside them. It works on a one-to-one basis — one free kid per paying adult — so a foursome of two parents and two juniors pays for just two rounds.

The program runs through the summer months of June, July, and August at most participating courses, matching the family vacation calendar. Even better for planners: roughly 30 of the participating courses extend kids-play-free offers year-round, so a fall or spring trip can cash in on the same deal.

The roster of 50+ participating courses stretches across the entire Grand Strand, from Pawleys Island in the south all the way into Brunswick County, North Carolina — and it isn’t a list of afterthought layouts. It includes some of the most celebrated designs in the Southeast, the same courses that anchor serious buddy-trip itineraries. The current list, tee times, and each course’s specific terms live at PlayGolfMyrtleBeach.com/kids-play-free.

“Our summer mandate is centered around inclusive excellence and unmatched accessibility, making certain that Myrtle Beach remains the most welcoming and vibrant destination in the golf ecosystem,” said Kyle Oland, Director of Marketing for Golf Tourism Solutions. “By expanding opportunities for families to experience golf together on our member courses, we are actively cultivating the next generation of golfers and redefining how family vacations are spent on the fairways.”

The Fine Print Worth Knowing

Every course sets its own terms, and a few minutes of homework saves surprises at the pro shop counter:

• Age limits vary slightly. Most courses honor ages 16 and under, but some set the line at 15 and under or 14 and under. Check your specific course before promising a 16-year-old a free round.
• Afternoon-only at some courses. A number of participating courses — including some of the premium names — restrict the free junior round to afternoon tee times. In summer, that’s less of a sacrifice than it sounds; more on that below.
• Cart fees may apply. A few courses charge a junior cart fee for morning play while offering fully free afternoon rounds.
• One kid per paying adult. Two juniors need two paying adults in the group.
• Things change. Participating courses, dates, restrictions, and fees are subject to change, so confirm details when you book.

Participating Courses Near North Myrtle Beach

Staying in North Myrtle Beach puts a remarkable cluster of participating courses within a 10-to-25-minute drive of your beach chair:

• Barefoot Resort & Golf — all four championship courses (Dye, Fazio, Love, and Norman) participate, right across the waterway from the beach. Few places on the Strand make a kid feel more like a tour pro on the first tee.
• Tidewater Golf Club — the scenic stunner on the Cherry Grove peninsula, with marsh and Intracoastal views that make even a rough scorecard feel like a good day. Minutes from Cherry Grove Beach rentals.
• Glen Dornoch Golf Club — dramatic closing holes along the Intracoastal in Little River, a short hop up Highway 17.
• Crow Creek Golf Club — a family favorite just over the state line in Calabash, NC.
• Sea Trail Golf Resort — multiple courses at the Sunset Beach resort that also hosts Family Golf Week, about 20 minutes from the Cherry Grove section.

String together a different course each morning and you’ve built a junior golf camp with an ocean view — for the price of the adult rounds alone.

Bucket-List Courses Worth the Drive

Part of what makes this program remarkable is which courses said yes. These are layouts golfers plan entire trips around, and a junior can walk them free this summer:

• TPC Myrtle Beach — the area’s Tournament Players Club, polished to tour standards.
• King’s North at Myrtle Beach National — Arnold Palmer’s showpiece, home of the famous island-fairway “Gambler” hole that kids talk about the whole ride home.
• Grande Dunes Resort Course — big, beautiful golf above the Intracoastal Waterway.
• Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue — the celebrated Pawleys Island pair from architect Mike Strantz, worth the 45-minute drive south for the live oaks alone.
• Pine Lakes Country Club — “The Granddaddy,” the oldest course in Myrtle Beach (1927), where the area’s golf story began.
• The Legends courses (Heathland, Moorland, Parkland) — three distinct designs at one of the Strand’s classic golf resorts.

Note that several premium courses limit the free junior round to afternoon times — a fair trade for walking fairways of this caliber without a junior green fee.

Turning Free Golf Into a Full Family Vacation

The genius of Kids Play Free is how naturally it slots into the classic beach week. The formula that works for hundreds of families every summer looks like this: beach and pool in the morning when the sun is gentler, lunch at the rental, then parent-and-kid tee times in the afternoon — which happens to be exactly when most of the free-play windows open up. Everyone reconvenes for a seafood dinner with stories to compare.

Families flying in will find the logistics easy — Myrtle Beach International connects nonstop to more than 50 cities, and our golfer’s guide to MYR flights covers everything from routes to golf bag rules. Once you’re here, the non-golf hours fill themselves: the full menu of things to do in Myrtle Beach runs from water parks to fishing piers, and the summer events calendar adds festivals and live music to the mix.

And if your family catches the bug, the Grand Strand offers a natural next step: the annual Family Golf Week each July, where father-son and family teams from across the country compete on these same courses. More than a few of those teams started with a free junior round on a summer afternoon.

First Tee With the Kids: A Few Local Tips

• Book afternoon times on purpose. They’re when most free-play windows open, the course is quieter, and a late-day breeze off the ocean takes the edge off July. Bring water regardless — this is South Carolina in summer.
• Nine holes is a win. For younger juniors, plan to enjoy nine and treat the back nine as a bonus. A kid who leaves wanting more comes back tomorrow.
• Play the forward tees together. Nothing builds a young golfer’s confidence like reachable par 4s — and nothing slows a group down like a 9-year-old hitting driver from 6,800 yards.
• Rent or borrow junior clubs if needed. Many area courses and golf shops offer junior rental sets, so there’s no need to fly a second bag down.
• Let the wildlife do the entertaining. Herons, turtles, and the occasional alligator sighting (admired from a respectful distance) are half the fun of Lowcountry golf for kids.

Frequently Asked Questions

Free Golf for the Kids, the Beach for Everyone

A summer where the kids play championship golf for free and the ocean is waiting at the end of every round — that’s a vacation with very few losers. Thomas Beach Vacations can set your family up in the middle of it all, with oceanfront home rentals big enough for the whole crew and oceanfront condos perfect for smaller families — across all four North Myrtle Beach sections, from Ocean Drive to Crescent Beach and Windy Hill, each just minutes from participating courses. Browse availability at www.northmyrtlebeachvacations.com or call our local team at (866) 249-2100 — and let this be the summer somebody in your family falls in love with the game.

Golf trips to the Grand Strand follow a rhythm as reliable as the tides. Spring brings the buddy groups chasing perfect course conditions. Fall brings them back for one more round before winter. And summer — summer belongs to the families, the beach chairs, the boogie boards, and the ice cream runs on Main Street.

For twenty-eight years now, one event has folded those two vacations into a single week. Family Golf Week returns to the Grand Strand this Thursday through Saturday, July 16–18, 2026, spreading roughly 450 two-person teams — about 900 golfers, plus the small armies of spouses, siblings, and grandkids who travel with them — across nine courses from Myrtle Beach up into the North Carolina side of the Strand.

“As much as we know Myrtle Beach is all about golf, and all about families coming to the area to visit the beach, it’s like two different tourists,” tournament director Ryan Hart says. “This is like a combination of both. It’s getting the family to come while also using the game of golf to get them here.”

Walk any of the host courses this week and you’ll see what he means: a 76-year-old and his son reading the same putt from opposite sides, a father-daughter team high-fiving on a par save, three generations of one family trailing a single cart down the fairway. It’s a golf tournament, technically. It’s a family reunion, actually.

What Is Family Golf Week?

Family Golf Week is a three-day, 54-hole team tournament built around a simple idea that dates back to its founding: hold it in summer, when the kids are out of school, so the golf trip and the family vacation can be the same trip. Nearly three decades later, the formula still works — and it’s growing. The field has climbed from about 418 teams last year to approximately 450 this year, with players arriving from numerous states and from as far away as California and Canada.

Teams compete for both gross and net championships across 27 flights in multiple divisions, sorted by the age of the oldest team member — so a pair of 40-somethings isn’t grinding against a team with a college kid carrying the bag. Every division champion takes home a trophy and a Staff golf bag stitched with the words “national champions,” which tends to get displayed prominently in garages from New York to Wisconsin.

The event is operated by Mike Buccerone and Rob Mosser of East Coast Golf Management, and over the years its home base has rotated through some of the Strand’s biggest names — Wild Wing Plantation, Legends Golf Resort, Barefoot Resort — before this year’s move to a new headquarters worth talking about.

Two Tournaments, One Big Family Reunion

The National Father & Son Team Classic

The original. Held every year since 1998 — with the lone exception of 2020 — the Father & Son Classic pairs two male family members separated by at least a generation. What began as a way to get dads and school-age sons on vacation together has aged gracefully along with its field: today, many teams are a grandfather-aged player and his grown son, using the tournament as the fixed point on the calendar that pulls the whole family back to the beach.

“This event is just something they mark on their calendar and they’re not going to miss,” Hart says. “It’s pretty neat.”

The Family Division

What started more than a decade ago as the Parent-Child tournament has grown into the Family Division — the event’s answer to the fact that golf families come in every configuration. Teams here either include a female player or pair related members with no generational age gap: father-daughter, mother-son, brothers, cousins. Same courses, same flights, same trophies, same bragging rights at Thanksgiving.

A New Home Base: Sea Trail Golf Resort

The big news for 2026 is the move to Sea Trail Golf Resort in Sunset Beach, North Carolina — just over the state line at the quiet northern end of the Strand, about 20 minutes from North Myrtle Beach. Sea Trail has poured tens of millions of dollars into renovations and additions in recent years, with more on the way, and its renovated convention center gives Family Golf Week something it has never had: a proper indoor home for the week’s social side.

“Everything has always been at a golf course, outside, under a tent,” Hart says. “I just think the amenities and everything at Sea Trail are going to really be like an icing on the cake for this event. I think it’s going to be awesome moving it up there.”

For the traveling families, the location is a quiet bonus — Sunset Beach sits closer to the vacation heart of North Myrtle Beach than several of the event’s previous headquarters, which makes basing the family at the beach and commuting to the golf easier than ever.

The Nine Courses of Family Golf Week 2026

The tournament rota reads like a tour of the northern Strand’s best golf, on both sides of the state line:

• Sea Trail Golf Resort — Byrd and Maples Courses (Sunset Beach, NC) — two of the new host resort’s three championship layouts.
• Barefoot Resort — Dye and Love Courses (North Myrtle Beach) — a former tournament headquarters itself, and home to two of the area’s marquee designs.
• Rivers Edge Golf Club (Shallotte, NC) — an Arnold Palmer design draped along the marshes of the Shallotte River.
• River Hills Golf & Country Club (Little River) — rolling, tree-lined golf just minutes from North Myrtle Beach.
• Myrtlewood Golf Club — Palmetto Course (Myrtle Beach) — a longtime favorite along the Intracoastal Waterway.
• Arcadian Shores Golf Club (Myrtle Beach) — a classic Rees Jones layout dotted with lakes and sandy waste areas.
• Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club (Conway) — wide fairways and slick greens in a peaceful riverside setting.

Most of these sit within a comfortable 10-to-30-minute drive of a North Myrtle Beach vacation rental — one more reason so many Family Golf Week regulars set up camp here, whether in the Cherry Grove Beach section near the state line or down through Crescent Beach and Windy Hill.

Beyond the Scorecard: A Full Week of Festivities

The golf may end each day around mid-afternoon, but Family Golf Week keeps going well past the last putt — and the schedule is built so the non-playing family members are part of it too.

• Wednesday — Registration Day: Food distributor Cheney Brothers fires up a smoker during registration, alongside a putting contest to shake off the travel legs.
• Thursday — Family Golf Night: The whole family is invited into Sea Trail’s indoor ballroom for golf simulators and a long drive contest, with food from Logan’s Roadhouse.
• Friday — Long Drive Night: A long drive competition plus a demonstration from the big hitters of Xtreme Long Drive on the simulators.
• Saturday — Awards Reception: Trophies, national-champion golf bags, and one more spread from Logan’s Roadhouse to close out the week.

“It’s more than just the two participants,” Hart says. “It’s the whole family that comes down and everybody kind of feels like they’re a part of it whether they’re playing or not.”

Father of the Year, Family of the Year, and a First-Ever Ambassador

Every year the tournament honors the people who embody what the week is about, and the 2026 class tells the story better than any brochure could.

Father of the Year is Bill Johnston of Pennsylvania, 76, who is playing with his son Doug. Bill competed in the very first edition of the event back in 1998 — alongside his own father. “It’s kind of cool how they’ve stayed a part of the event, and he now plays with his son, and at some point Doug will probably do the same thing,” Hart says. “Most sons learn the game from their father and it’s like a generational passing.”

Family of the Year goes to Jamie and Kasey Harter, a father-daughter duo from New York — a fitting nod to how the Family Division has widened the tournament’s circle.

And for the first time, the event is naming an Ambassador of the Year: Lynn Messer of Wisconsin, the inaugural recipient, who plays with his son John from North Carolina. Their team is the tournament in miniature — family separated by half a country, reunited on a Grand Strand fairway every July.

“You get to hear stories throughout the week,” Hart says. “There are just a ton of people that, when you get to that age and you live in different states, it’s hard to keep up with family — and a lot of these people use it as a way to get back together.”

Plan Your Own Family Golf Week

Here’s the not-so-secret truth: you don’t need a tournament entry to pull off this trip. The Family Golf Week formula — mornings on the course, afternoons on the sand, everybody back together for dinner — is available to any family, any summer week, anywhere along the Strand.

The logistics are easy. Fly into Myrtle Beach International from more than 50 nonstop cities (our golfer’s guide to MYR flights covers routes, golf bag rules, and rental cars), set up in a vacation rental in North Myrtle Beach, and build your own rota from the dozens of courses within a half-hour — including several on this year’s tournament list. The non-golfers get the beach, the pools, and the full menu of things to do in Myrtle Beach; everyone else gets a 7:40 tee time and no guilt about it. Check the area events calendar to layer in a festival or concert night.

And if watching this week’s teams gives you the itch, registration for next summer opens through the tournament’s official site — the 29th edition will be here sooner than you think.

Frequently Asked Questions

Bring the Whole Crew — We’ll Handle the Beach House

Whether you’re teeing it up in Family Golf Week or just borrowing its beautiful formula — golf in the morning, family on the beach all afternoon — the right home base makes the whole week work. Thomas Beach Vacations offers oceanfront home rentals with room for three generations under one roof, and oceanfront condos perfect for a father-son pair making their annual pilgrimage — all along Ocean Drive and the beaches of North Myrtle Beach, minutes from this year’s tournament courses. Browse availability at www.northmyrtlebeachvacations.com or call our local team at (866) 249-2100 — and start your own tradition worth marking on the calendar every July.

There’s a particular feeling Main Street in North Myrtle Beach gets on a festival morning. The barricades go up before sunrise, the vendor tents unfold one by one in the half-light, and by the time the sun clears the pier at Ocean Drive, you can smell kettle corn and funnel cakes drifting all the way down to the Horseshoe. Locals know that feeling well. This September, it gets a brand-new name.

The City of North Myrtle Beach has announced NMB Live!, its newest signature festival, coming to Main Street on Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The tagline says it plainly: one street, three stages, endless fun. Three stages of continuous live music, more than 150 vendors, a Kids’ Zone, crowd contests, and every restaurant and shop along Main Street open and in on the action — all with free admission.

For a town that has been throwing street parties on this same stretch of pavement for generations — shag music pouring out of Fat Harold’s, parades rolling past the pastel storefronts, fall festival crowds fifteen thousand strong — NMB Live! is less a brand-new idea than a fresh coat of paint on something North Myrtle Beach has always done better than just about anyone on the Grand Strand: turn Main Street into the center of the world for a day.

Here’s everything we know so far, what to expect, and how to make a full beach weekend out of it.

What Is NMB Live!? The Basics at a Glance

NMB Live! is the City of North Myrtle Beach’s new signature street festival, produced by the city’s Parks & Recreation Department. The inaugural edition takes over Main Street in the Ocean Drive section of town for one big Saturday in late September — prime festival weather on the Grand Strand, when the summer crowds have thinned but the ocean is still warm and the afternoons still feel like beach season.

The essentials:

• When: Saturday, September 26, 2026, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
• Where: Main Street, North Myrtle Beach, SC (the Ocean Drive district)
• Admission: Free
• What: 3 stages of live entertainment, 150+ vendors, a Kids’ Zone, interactive contests, and People’s Choice awards
• Expected crowd: More than 15,000 visitors
• Official info & vendor applications: nmb.us/855/NMB-Live

City officials say more entertainment announcements, contests, and festival details are on the way as the date gets closer, so treat this as the opening chapter rather than the whole story.

Three Stages, One Street: The Music Lineup

The heart of NMB Live! is exactly what the name promises — live music, all day, from one end of Main Street to the other. Three stages will run continuous entertainment from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, and the opening lineup already covers a lot of musical ground.

Yacht Rock Radio

If you’ve ever wanted to hear smooth 70s and 80s soft rock — think Hall & Oates, Toto, Christopher Cross — while standing a block from the actual ocean, this is your moment. Yacht Rock Radio brings the captain’s-hat-and-blazer era back to life, and it’s hard to picture a better setting for it than a sunny September Saturday at the beach.

Whiskey Run

A hard-touring country and classic rock cover band that plays rooms and festival stages across the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, Whiskey Run is a familiar name to anyone who follows the Grand Strand’s live music circuit. Expect boots-on-pavement country hits mixed with singalong rock staples.

Tokyo Joe

A South Carolina party-rock institution, Tokyo Joe has been filling dance floors around the state for years with high-energy rock and top-40 covers. They’re a regular draw at Myrtle Beach area venues, and they know how to work a festival crowd.

Rounding out the stages: local dance groups and additional performers still to be announced. Between the three stages there will always be something playing, so the smart move is to wander — catch a set, grab a bite, drift to the next stage, repeat.

More Than 150 Vendors Along Main Street

Festival food and browsing are half the fun of any street festival, and NMB Live! is planning big: more than 150 arts, crafts, food, nonprofit, and commercial vendors lining Main Street. That’s the kind of vendor count that turns a stroll from Ocean Boulevard up toward Highway 17 into a slow, happy, two-hour affair.

Based on North Myrtle Beach’s long festival track record on this street, expect handmade coastal art and jewelry, beach-house decor, boiled peanuts and kettle corn, local nonprofits you’ll actually want to chat with, and enough food options that lunch becomes a progressive meal rather than a single decision. Artists and makers interested in a booth can find vendor applications on the city’s official NMB Live! page.

The Kids’ Zone and Family Fun

NMB Live! is built as a family event from the ground up. A dedicated Kids’ Zone will feature rides, games, and family-friendly activities — the kind of setup that buys parents a full afternoon while the kids burn off energy between the funnel cake and the next ride.

The 10 AM to 4 PM schedule is quietly family-friendly, too. You can do the whole festival and still have the kids back at the beach house before dinner, with time left over for an evening walk on the sand. If your crew is staying in the Ocean Drive section, you’re already within walking distance — no parking required.

Contests, Competitions, and Crowd Participation

One thing that sets NMB Live! apart from a standard vendor fair is the emphasis on audience participation. The city has announced interactive contests and audience participation events running throughout the day, plus People’s Choice competitions where festival-goers vote for their favorite vendors and performers.

That People’s Choice element is a nice nod to festival history on this street — the fall festival that came before NMB Live! was famous for its friendly food competitions, where local restaurants battled for bragging rights and visitors got to eat the evidence. The city has promised more contest details in the weeks ahead, so keep an eye on the official page.

Main Street Itself: The Real Star of the Show

Here’s what first-time visitors sometimes miss: Main Street in North Myrtle Beach isn’t just a festival venue. It’s one of the most storied few blocks on the entire South Carolina coast — the birthplace-in-spirit of the shag, South Carolina’s official state dance, and the beating heart of the old Ocean Drive beach music scene.

During NMB Live!, the street’s restaurants, shops, and businesses will be open and participating, which means the festival flows straight into the places that give Main Street its year-round personality:

• Fat Harold’s Beach Club — the legendary shag club at 212 Main Street, keeping beach music alive since the days when jukeboxes did the DJing. If you hear classic beach music drifting out the door mid-festival, follow it.
• OD Arcade & Lounge — a longtime local hangout with one of the busiest dance floors in town, just steps from the Horseshoe.
• Duck’s Night Life — a Main Street double-sided club that’s been hosting live bands and shaggers since 1983.
• Pirate’s Cove Bar & Grill — a multi-decade Main Street staple with a rooftop bar overlooking the action.
• Flynn’s Irish Tavern — set in a converted former jail, with live acoustic music most nights and a proper beer garden.
• Dirty Don’s Oyster Bar and Main St. Taphouse at the Shops on Main — for fresh oysters and a cold local pour a short stroll from the stages.
• OD Pavilion at the Horseshoe — billed as the last open-air dance pavilion on the East Coast, right where Main Street meets the ocean.

Our full local’s guide to Main Street covers the shops, ice cream stops, and strolls in more detail — worth a read before festival day so you know exactly where you’re headed when the music breaks.

From the Irish Italian Festival to NMB Live!

Longtime visitors will notice the timing: late September on Main Street has belonged to the Irish Italian International Festival for over two decades. That beloved event ran for 21 years, drawing around 15,000 people annually for cultural food, music, and a famously competitive spaghetti-eating contest.

NMB Live! steps into that slot as a bigger, broader evolution of the tradition. As Angel Sylvester, Special Events Manager for the city’s Parks & Recreation Department, put it, the new festival was created to provide “a larger, more dynamic event while continuing the tradition of bringing our community together” — with music spanning yacht rock, country, and party bands instead of a single cultural theme, a third stage added, and an expanded vendor footprint.

So if you’ve made the September pilgrimage to Main Street before, come see the next chapter. If you never caught the old festival, you’re arriving just in time for a new tradition’s very first year — and there’s something special about being able to say you were at the first one.

Planning Your NMB Live! Weekend

Getting There and Getting Around

Main Street closes to traffic on festival day, and parking in the Ocean Drive district fills early when 15,000 people come to town. Arrive on the early side — the 10 AM opening hour is genuinely pleasant, with cooler temperatures and first pick of the vendor booths. Better yet, stay close enough to walk.

Where to Stay

The festival sits in the Ocean Drive section, which makes the surrounding neighborhoods the natural home base. An oceanfront condo near Main Street puts you within strolling distance of the stages, while an oceanfront home rental gives bigger groups room to spread out for the whole weekend.

Each of North Myrtle Beach’s sections has its own festival-weekend personality: Cherry Grove Beach offers quiet mornings and the fishing pier just north of the action; Crescent Beach and Windy Hill sit a short drive south with wide, family-friendly stretches of sand — close enough for the festival, far enough for peace and quiet afterward.

Make It a Full Fall Weekend

Late September is one of the best-kept secrets on the Grand Strand — warm ocean, soft light, smaller crowds, and lower rental rates than midsummer. Build around festival Saturday with a look at our guide to a fall vacation in North Myrtle Beach, browse the wider Myrtle Beach events calendar for what else is happening that week, or go deep on the full list of things to do in Myrtle Beach across the Grand Strand.

Frequently Asked Questions

Make Main Street Your Front Yard This September

The best way to experience NMB Live! is the way locals will: wake up steps from the ocean, walk to the festival with coffee in hand, and wander home whenever the music winds down. Thomas Beach Vacations offers oceanfront homes and condos throughout North Myrtle Beach — including right in the Ocean Drive district, an easy stroll from the Main Street stages. Late September brings some of the year’s best weather and friendliest rental rates, so it’s a fine excuse to stretch festival Saturday into a full beach week. Browse availability at www.northmyrtlebeachvacations.com or give our local team a call at (866) 249-2100 — we’d love to help you find the perfect home base for the first-ever NMB Live!

Every returning golfer knows the moment. The plane banks over the pine flats of Horry County on its descent into Myrtle Beach International, the fairways start appearing below you — green ribbons threaded through the trees, one course after another after another — and then the Atlantic swings into view, wide and glittering, with the high-rises of the Grand Strand strung along it like beads. Right about then, someone in row 14 always says it out loud: “There it is.”

Flying to the beach used to be the hard part of a Myrtle Beach golf trip. Not anymore. Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR) now connects nonstop to more than 50 cities across the U.S., served by eleven different airlines — and it just finished a $93.5 million expansion that grew the terminal from 11 gates to 18. For a mid-sized coastal airport, MYR punches far above its weight, and it does it while staying the kind of place where you can walk from your gate to the rental car counter in about ten minutes.

That matters, because the whole point of a Grand Strand vacation is what happens after you land: roughly 90 golf courses stretched along 60 miles of coastline, warm sand, seafood dinners, and — if you’re doing it right — an oceanfront place in North Myrtle Beach where the beach is your backyard and the first tee is fifteen minutes away.

Here’s the complete picture of flying in and out of Myrtle Beach — which airlines go where, when to come, how to get your clubs here safely, and how to get from baggage claim to the beach chair as fast as possible.

Meet MYR: The Beach’s Front Door

Myrtle Beach International sits just three miles southwest of downtown Myrtle Beach, on land that was once the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. It’s a single-terminal airport with a single long runway, and that simplicity is its superpower: no trams, no terminal transfers, no twenty-minute hikes between concourses. You land, you walk, you’re at baggage claim.

Don’t mistake small-feeling for small, though. MYR welcomed a record 3.8 million passengers in 2024, and in December 2025 it completed a $93.5 million terminal expansion that added six new gates — bringing the total to 18 — along with expanded dining, retail, and security capacity. The airport has grown up alongside the destination itself, which now draws visitors from every corner of the country.

For golfers, the airport experience is refreshingly familiar territory: oversized-bag claim for the travel cases, rental car counters steps away, and a steady parade of fellow travelers in golf polos who all seem to be grinning at the same thought you are.

Who Flies Nonstop to Myrtle Beach

Eleven airlines currently serve MYR with nonstop flights to over 50 North American destinations. Some routes run year-round; many are seasonal, ramping up for spring golf season and summer beach season. Here’s the lineup:

• Allegiant Air — the route king at MYR, with around 21 nonstop destinations, mostly small and mid-sized cities across the Northeast and Midwest (Albany, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and more). New seasonal routes from Dayton, OH and Elmira/Corning, NY launched in 2026.
• American Airlines — nonstops from Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York. Charlotte is MYR’s single busiest route, and American’s hub network makes one-stop connections possible from almost anywhere.
• Southwest Airlines — around 11 destinations including Nashville, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, and Houston.
• Breeze Airways — about 15 destinations, with a focus on underserved cities like Providence, Hartford, New Orleans, and Tampa.
• Spirit Airlines — MYR’s largest carrier by passenger share, with routes including Newark, Boston, Atlantic City, Pittsburgh, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando.
• Delta Air Lines — service from its Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Boston, and New York hubs.
• United Airlines — nonstops from Chicago O’Hare, Newark, Washington, D.C., and Denver.
• Frontier Airlines — Philadelphia, Long Island, and Cleveland.
• Avelo Airlines — New Haven, CT and Wilmington, DE.
• Sun Country Airlines — seasonal Minneapolis–St. Paul service.
• Contour Airlines — the newest arrival, launching seasonal summer 2026 service from three small cities the big carriers skip: Beckley, WV, Parkersburg, WV, and Altoona, PA.

The takeaway for trip planners: if you’re anywhere in the eastern half of the country, odds are good you can fly to the beach nonstop — often for less than you’d expect, since the low-cost carriers keep everyone’s fares honest. West of the Mississippi, you’ll typically connect once through Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas, or Denver. Schedules shift seasonally, so always confirm current service on the airport’s official site or directly with your airline.

Every City With Nonstop Flights to Myrtle Beach

Here’s the full map of where you can board a plane and step off at the beach with no connection in between, based on the airport’s current route network. Keep in mind that many of these routes are seasonal — strongest from spring through fall, exactly when the golf is best.

New York & New England

New York City (LaGuardia), Newark, Long Island/Islip, Westchester, Newburgh/Stewart, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Niagara Falls, Elmira/Corning, Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, and Manchester, NH. No region feeds more golfers to the Grand Strand than the Northeast, and the route map shows it — you can leave half a dozen different New York State airports in the morning and make an afternoon tee time.

Mid-Atlantic

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. (both Reagan National and Dulles), Atlantic City, Wilmington, DE, Harrisburg, Allentown, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Latrobe, Altoona, and Hagerstown, MD. Pittsburgh alone is served by three different carriers — a telling sign of how deep the Pennsylvania-to-Myrtle Beach pipeline runs. Flying from central PA? We’ve covered the new Altoona nonstop service in detail.

Midwest

Chicago (both O’Hare and Midway), Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus (two airports), Cincinnati, Dayton, Akron-Canton, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Kansas City, and St. Louis (both Lambert and nearby Belleville, IL). The Midwest snowbird routes are a Grand Strand tradition — half of Ohio seems to be here every March.

The South & Florida

Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Louisville, Lexington, Dallas (both DFW and Love Field), Houston, New Orleans, Orlando, Tampa, and Fort Lauderdale. Charlotte and Atlanta are the workhorse connections — if your city isn’t on this page, one easy stop through either hub gets you here.

West Virginia & Appalachia

Charleston, Huntington, Beckley, Parkersburg, and Clarksburg. Five West Virginia airports with nonstop beach service is a remarkable stat for a state of its size — and a reminder of how deeply the Mountain State loves this stretch of coast.

The West

Denver — the lone true western nonstop, served by two airlines, and the gateway connection for golfers coming from the Rockies and beyond.

Timing Your Flight Around the Golf Seasons

Spring: Prime Time

March through May is high season for Grand Strand golf — mild temperatures, courses in tournament shape, and flight schedules at their fullest as seasonal routes come back online. It’s also when the golf world’s attention turns here: the PGA TOUR’s ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic returns to the historic Dunes Golf & Beach Club May 7–10, 2026. Book flights early for spring; this is when demand peaks for foursomes flying in from the Northeast and Midwest.

Summer: Beach First, Golf Early

Summer belongs to families, and flights fill with beach traffic. Golfers who come in June through August learn the local rhythm quickly: tee off at dawn, be done by noon, spend the afternoon in the ocean. Package rates on courses drop, and the beach is at its warm, busy best.

Fall: The Locals’ Favorite

September through November is the connoisseur’s season — summer crowds gone, ocean still warm into October, courses freshly recovered from summer, and rental rates noticeably friendlier. Fall flight schedules stay strong because the golf demand stays strong. If your group has flexibility, this is the sweet spot, and it pairs beautifully with a fall vacation in North Myrtle Beach full of festivals and events.

Winter: The Bargain Window

December through February brings the year’s lowest fares and green fees. Some seasonal routes pause, but the major carriers keep flying, and plenty of mild 60-degree days sneak into a Carolina winter. For snowbirds and budget-minded golfers, it’s quietly one of the smartest times to come.

Flying With Your Clubs: What Every Golfer Should Know

Good news first: on virtually every airline serving MYR, your golf bag counts as a standard checked bag, not an exotic oversized item. Delta, American, and United all treat a properly packed golf travel bag as one regular checked bag at the standard fee, and most waive oversize charges for golf equipment as long as it stays under the weight limit. Southwest does the same — golf bags count as one checked bag with size charges waived, though the days of two free checked bags ended in May 2025 (a first bag now runs about $45 unless your fare type or credit card includes it).

On the low-cost carriers — Allegiant, Spirit, Frontier, Breeze, Avelo — a golf bag is likewise treated as a checked bag, with fees that vary by route and are always cheapest when purchased during booking rather than at the airport. Allegiant, for example, applies its standard checked bag fee per person, per bag, per segment, with extra charges above 50 pounds.

A few hard-earned tips from the frequent flyers of the fairway:

• Stay under 50 pounds. That’s the magic number on nearly every carrier before overweight fees kick in — and a loaded travel case with shoes, balls, and rain gear gets there faster than you’d think. Weigh it at home.
• Pad your driver. Whether you use a hard case or a soft travel bag, add a support rod or wrap towels around the clubheads. Broken-driver stories are the saddest stories told at Grand Strand 19th holes.
• Check your airline’s current policy before you fly. Baggage rules change; confirm fees and rules on your carrier’s website when you book.
• Or skip the schlep entirely. Club shipping services can send your sticks door-to-door ahead of you, and nearly every course on the Grand Strand offers quality rental sets — a legitimate option for a short trip.

Wheels Down: Getting From MYR to North Myrtle Beach

North Myrtle Beach sits about 20 miles north of the airport — figure 30 to 40 minutes depending on season and traffic, either straight up Highway 17 through the heart of the Grand Strand or the faster Highway 31 bypass if you’re skipping the scenery.

Rental Cars: The Golfer’s Default

For a golf trip, a rental car is close to essential — you’ll want the trunk space for travel bags and the freedom to chase tee times up and down the coast. MYR makes it easy: eight national rental brands operate from an on-site rental facility open until midnight daily, a short walk from baggage claim. Book ahead for spring weekends, when arriving foursomes can clean out the SUV inventory.

Rideshare, Taxis, and Shuttles

Uber and Lyft pick up in a designated commercial lane across from Door 5, and taxis queue outside Door 6 at baggage claim. Private car and shuttle services can be pre-arranged for larger groups — a popular move for golf buddy trips where nobody wants to be the designated driver after the welcome-night oysters. If your whole vacation lives within walking distance of your rental — beach, restaurants, and a couple of nearby courses — you can plausibly skip the car and rideshare to your tee times.

Where the Golf Is: Courses Near Your Rental

Here’s the part of the flight-planning math that surprises first-timers: staying in North Myrtle Beach doesn’t move you away from the golf — it puts you in the middle of some of the Grand Strand’s best of it.

• Barefoot Resort & Golf — four championship courses (designed by Pete Dye, Tom Fazio, Davis Love III, and Greg Norman) on the mainland side of North Myrtle Beach, ten minutes from the sand.
• Tidewater Golf Club — perched on the Cherry Grove peninsula with holes overlooking the salt marsh and Intracoastal Waterway; regularly ranked among the area’s most scenic layouts. It’s practically next door if you’re staying at Cherry Grove Beach.
• Surf Golf & Beach Club — a classic 1960 course minutes from Ocean Drive, long a favorite of locals.
• The Little River cluster — Glen Dornoch, Heather Glen, and their neighbors sit just north of town along the Intracoastal, adding another handful of quality rounds within a 15-minute drive.

And that’s before you point the rental car south toward the famous names of the central and southern Strand. With roughly 90 courses along the coast, the honest problem isn’t finding golf — it’s narrowing it down. For the non-golfers in your traveling party (they exist, we hear), our guide to things to do in Myrtle Beach and the area events calendar will keep everyone happily occupied while you’re on the back nine.

Smart Booking Tips for the Beach-and-Birdies Crowd

• Fly midweek if you can. Saturday-to-Saturday is the beach rental rhythm, so Tuesday and Wednesday flights are often cheaper and emptier — and a Sunday-to-Thursday golf trip means quieter first tees, too.
• Watch the seasonal calendar. Many MYR routes are seasonal, typically running spring through early fall. If you’re planning a winter trip, check that your nonstop still operates, or plan on connecting through Charlotte or Atlanta.
• Price the low-cost carriers honestly. Allegiant, Spirit, Breeze, Frontier, and Avelo fares look tiny until you add a checked golf bag, a carry-on, and seat selection. Sometimes they still win by a mile; sometimes the legacy carrier with a free carry-on comes out ahead. Do the full math.
• Book spring flights early. March–May golf demand is real. The foursomes who wait until February to book their April trip pay for the privilege.
• Match your flight to your rental week. Most beach house rentals run Saturday to Saturday; condos often offer more flexible arrival days. Locking in lodging first, flights second usually produces the smoothest trip.

Frequently Asked Questions

Land, Unpack, Tee Off

The flight is the easy part now. The better question is where you’ll wake up on the morning of that first tee time — and that’s where we can help. Thomas Beach Vacations offers oceanfront home rentals perfect for golf groups who want room to spread out, and oceanfront condos ideal for couples pairing beach mornings with afternoon rounds — all across North Myrtle Beach’s four beach sections, from Cherry Grove down through Crescent Beach and Windy Hill, each within an easy drive of dozens of courses. Browse availability at www.northmyrtlebeachvacations.com or call our local team at (866) 249-2100 — we’ll help you find the home base that makes the whole trip, from touchdown to final putt, feel effortless.

Myrtle Duck Festival 2026: Thousands of Rubber Ducks Take Over The Market Common on July 25

There is a moment coming to Myrtle Beach on Saturday, July 25, 2026, that nobody along the Grand Strand has ever seen before. A helicopter will lift off, swing out over the Grand Pond at The Market Common, and open its cargo to the summer sky. What falls will not be rain. It will be ducks — thousands of them, small and yellow and blue and teal and green and gray, tumbling down toward the water while a crowd of families, locals, and vacationers roars from the banks below.

That is the opening act of the first-ever Myrtle Duck Festival, a free, full-day community celebration built around one gloriously silly and genuinely meaningful idea: race rubber ducks across a pond, and let every single one of them raise money for a local nonprofit. Make-A-Wish South Carolina. Habitat for Humanity of Horry County. SOS Care. The Kiwanis Club. The YMCA of Coastal Carolina. Every duck bobbing toward that finish line carries a cause on its back.

Around the race itself, organizers have stacked a full day of live music, food trucks, a custom truck and Jeep show, a live art exhibit, a crab-cracking championship, and family activities from gate open to sundown. If you are planning a July beach vacation anywhere along the Grand Strand — and especially if you are settling into a rental up in North Myrtle Beach — this is the kind of one-day-only event worth building an afternoon around. Here is everything you need to know.

What Is the Myrtle Duck Festival?

The Myrtle Duck Festival is a brand-new charity duck race and community festival taking place Saturday, July 25, 2026, at the Grand Pond in The Market Common district of Myrtle Beach. Admission is free. Gates open at 11 a.m., the headline duck race launches at 4 p.m., and the festival winds down at 7 p.m. — which, for anyone who knows Grand Strand summers, leaves just enough evening to catch the last light back at the beach.

The event is hosted by the Find Me Outside Foundation, a local nonprofit dedicated to connecting kids and families through outdoor experiences, and produced by Loggerhead Productions, with backing from sponsors including Visit Myrtle Beach, Joe’s Crab Shack, and Bass Pro Shops. According to local reporting from WMBF News, organizers dreamed the whole thing up earlier this year and built it into a full-scale festival in a matter of months — a helicopter, five foundations, and one very crowded pond later, here we are.

The Market Common is the right stage for it. The former Air Force base turned urban village has become one of Myrtle Beach’s favorite gathering spots, with tree-lined streets, fountains, restaurants spilling onto sidewalks, and the wide green lawns of Grand Park wrapping around the very pond where the ducks will race. On a summer Saturday, the whole district hums.

The Great Duck Drop and the Race Down the Grand Pond

Every festival needs its signature moment, and this one arrives at 3:30 p.m. sharp. The Great Duck Drop is exactly what it sounds like: a ceremonial helicopter release of thousands of colorful rubber ducks over the Grand Pond, the official kickoff to the Myrtle Duck Race. Picture the shadow of the helicopter sliding across the water, the collective gasp as the ducks scatter into the air, and then the plunk-plunk-plunk of a few thousand little racers hitting the pond at once. Cameras up. This is the photo of the summer.

At 4 p.m., the race itself gets underway. Every duck in the water represents one adoption — one $10 entry purchased by someone in the crowd, or by supporters watching from anywhere in the country — and every duck races on behalf of one of five local foundations. The finish order matters, because the race results determine how much bonus prize funding each nonprofit takes home. First place earns its foundation a $5,000 donation, with payouts running down through fifth place. The better a cause’s ducks perform, the more that cause wins.

That structure turns a whimsical spectacle into something closer to a hometown rivalry. Families stake out spots along the banks, cheering for teal or yellow or blue like it is a Friday night football game — except the winners here are children waiting on wishes, families waiting on homes, and neighbors waiting on opportunity.

How Duck Adoptions Work — and Where the Money Goes

Adopting a duck is the heart of the festival. Each adoption costs $10, serves as one entry in the race, and is tied to a specific cause by duck color. Half of every adoption purchase goes directly to the nonprofit you choose, and there is no limit on how many ducks one person can adopt — the more ducks a foundation’s supporters put in the water, the better that foundation’s odds on race day. You do not need to attend in person for your duck to race, though the organizers would rightly tell you the pond-side view beats the group chat update.

Here is the full field of causes and colors, along with the prize money on the line:

Race-day payouts to the foundations run $5,000 for first place, $3,500 for second, $2,500 for third, $2,000 for fourth, and $1,000 for fifth. Two fine-print notes worth knowing before you adopt: duck adoptions are considered event participation purchases rather than charitable donations, so they are not tax deductible, and no physical duck ships with your purchase — your duck lives its whole glorious life on that pond.

Festival Schedule for Saturday, July 25

The festival unfolds across a full eight hours, and the pacing is smart — the marquee moments cluster in the mid-afternoon, leaving the morning for wandering, eating, and truck-gawking, and the evening for mainstage music. Organizers note that timing can shift with weather or logistics, so a quick check of the official festival site the morning of is always wise.

Beyond the Race: Trucks, Crab Crackin’, and Canvas for a Cause

The FBK Offroad Big Duckin’ Truck Show & Tailgate

Hosted by the Carolina Coast Jeep Club, the Big Duckin’ Truck Show rolls custom trucks, lifted Jeeps, off-road builds, and big rigs onto the festival grounds for a day-long tailgate. If you have ever found a rubber duck perched on your Jeep’s door handle in a beach parking lot, you already understand the culture at work here — “ducking” Jeeps is a nationwide tradition, and this festival essentially built it a hometown. Owners hang around their builds all day, happy to talk suspension lifts and light bars with anyone who wanders up.

The Joe’s Crab Shack Crab Crackin’ Championship

Twenty contestants, one qualifier round, and a ten-person championship final where speed and technique with a crab cracker earn prizes, gift cards, and the kind of bragging rights that only make sense in a coastal town. The qualifier runs at 2 p.m. with finals at 5 p.m., bracketing the duck race like a seafood-scented undercard and main event.

Canvas for a Cause and the Community Impact Village

From noon onward, a local artist works a massive canvas in real time, building a festival masterpiece inspired by the community and the nonprofits at the event’s heart. It is the kind of slow, mesmerizing sideshow that gives a festival its texture — stop by early, come back late, and watch the story fill in brushstroke by brushstroke. Nearby, the Community Impact Village gathers local nonprofits beyond the five racing foundations, each offering hands-on activities and a chance to meet the people doing quiet, important work across Horry County. Add food trucks, vendor rows, sponsor giveaways, fishing and outdoor experiences, and dedicated kids’ activities, and the hours between gate and race fill themselves.

Making a Day of It at The Market Common

One of the quiet advantages of this festival is its address. The Market Common is a destination in its own right, and the Grand Pond sits within an easy stroll of some of the district’s best eating and entertainment. Arrive hungry and you have options beyond the food trucks: Travinia Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar for a proper sit-down lunch, Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant for a house-brewed lager on the patio, or Tupelo Honey for Southern brunch fare if you roll in before the gates open. The Uncommon Chocolatier handles dessert duty, and Cold Stone Creamery handles the inevitable mid-afternoon ice cream negotiation with the kids.

If the July heat sends you searching for air conditioning between the truck show and the duck drop, the Grand 14 Cinemas and 810 Billiards & Bowling are both steps away. Families with younger children should also know about Savannah’s Playground, the sprawling, all-inclusive playground bordering Grand Park — it is one of the finest public play spaces on the entire coast, and it is free. Between the festival, the shops, the restaurants, and the park itself, July 25 at The Market Common builds itself into a full day without much effort on your part.

Planning Your Trip from North Myrtle Beach

From North Myrtle Beach, The Market Common sits roughly 30 to 40 minutes south, depending on where along the coast you are staying and how the summer traffic on Highway 17 is behaving. From a vacation rental in Cherry Grove Beach, at the far northern tip, plan for the longer end of that window; from Windy Hill, the southernmost North Myrtle Beach section near Barefoot Landing, you will shave a good ten minutes off the drive. Either way, the smart play is Highway 31 south to Highway 544 or Highway 17 Bypass, which drops you near Farrow Parkway and the festival grounds without fighting the beachfront lights.

The rhythm of the day works beautifully with a beach vacation. Spend the morning on the sand near your rental in Ocean Drive or Crescent Beach, rinse off the salt, and head south after lunch to catch the truck show, the duck drop at 3:30, and the race at 4. You will be back north by dinnertime with the whole story to tell — and if you are staying in one of our oceanfront home rentals, the evening ends the way North Myrtle Beach evenings should: on a porch, facing the Atlantic, with the day’s sunscreen finally surrendering. Guests in our oceanfront condo rentals get the same finale from a balcony a few stories closer to the stars.

One practical tip: adopt your ducks online before festival day. Adoptions are open now through the official festival website, and locking in your entries early means race day is pure spectating — no lines, no logistics, just you and a few thousand ducks with somewhere to be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: Event details, schedule, duck adoption structure, and foundation information verified via the official Myrtle Duck Festival website (myrtleduckfestival.com); local reporting from WMBF News (June 2026); and event listings from Visit Myrtle Beach and The Market Common. Event timing and logistics may change due to weather, safety, or permitting requirements — confirm details on the official festival site before attending.

The land remembers things the highway forgot. Drive south on Kings Highway past the outlet malls and the pancake houses and the airport fence line, and somewhere around the 4400 block the billboards fall away and the live oaks close in overhead, and you are suddenly inside a piece of the Grand Strand that has not changed its mind in ninety years. This is Myrtle Beach State Park, and on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, it turned ninety years old — the first state park ever opened in South Carolina, still standing on the same 312 acres of maritime forest and undeveloped sand where it began in the summer of 1936.

Ninety is a peculiar age for a public place. Restaurants do not reach it. Amusement parks rarely do. Most of the motor courts and fishing camps that shared the coast with this park in 1936 exist now only in postcards and in the memories of people who were children then. But the park endured — through a world war fought next door at what became the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, through Hurricane Hazel and Hurricane Hugo, through Ian and a nor’easter and every ordinary summer in between — and on the first day of July it threw itself a birthday party with cupcakes and candles and children who had no idea they were standing on the oldest ground in the entire South Carolina state park system.

The celebration drew locals, vacationers, rangers and volunteers, and it did what the park has always done best: it slowed everybody down. There were guided history walks at nine in the morning, relay races and hula hoops before lunch, old photographs laid out across picnic tables like a family album nobody had opened in years, and at noon, ninety cupcakes handed out one at a time until they were gone. For a coastline built on speed — on lazy rivers and zip lines and all-you-can-eat crab legs — a morning spent looking at a 1938 photograph of a park entrance is its own quiet kind of thrill.

If you are vacationing anywhere along the Grand Strand this July, the anniversary is more than a news item. It is an invitation. The party lasted one day, but the celebration runs all month — and the park itself, with its pier and its sculptured oaks and its mile of beach that looks the way the whole coast once looked, is open every single day. Here is the story of how it got here, and how to see it for yourself.

A Birthday Ninety Years in the Making

The morning of July 1 began the way most good mornings at this park begin: on foot, under the trees, before the heat had fully arrived. From 9 to 10 a.m., rangers led a guided walk called A Stroll Back in Time, starting at the Fishing Pier picnic deck and winding through the natural and historical features that have shaped the park since 1936 — the dunes, the forest, the old Civilian Conservation Corps structures that still stand and still work, some of them, nearly a century after young men built them by hand for a dollar a day.

By mid-morning the celebration had moved to Shelter 1, where park staff ran water relays, hula hoop contests and obstacle courses for the kids from 10:30 to 11:15. Then came the part the older visitors had really come for: a History and Memories session, where rangers spread historic photographs across the picnic tables and simply talked — about what the park looked like in the fifties, about the storms, about the families who have camped in the same loop for three and four generations. At noon, the cupcakes appeared, chocolate and vanilla, the first ninety visitors served while supplies lasted, and children were called up to help blow out the candles. The afternoon closed with a presentation in the Activity Center classroom titled Through the Years at Myrtle Beach State Park, a walk through nine decades of photographs and milestones.

According to reporting from MyHorryNews, visitors came from well beyond Horry County for the occasion. One couple from North Carolina, Debbie and Bruce Anderson, told the paper they had driven down specifically to learn the park’s history and found themselves charmed as much by the people as the place — the crowd itself, Debbie Anderson observed, was half the entertainment. Giveaways included park maps and a commemorative sticker bearing the park logo and a special 90th anniversary design, small tokens that will be riding on cooler lids and camper bumpers up and down the East Coast by August.

Park officials framed the day plainly: the celebration was designed to honor the park’s long history while encouraging people to get out and use the place — to fish it, walk it, swim it, camp it. Ninety years on, that remains the whole idea.

The Boys in Green and Yellow: How the CCC Built South Carolina’s First State Park

During the anniversary program, interpretive ranger Ann Wilson opened her welcome with a question that stumped most of the crowd: did anyone know what the colors green and yellow stood for? The answer, she explained, was the Civilian Conservation Corps — the Depression-era work program whose colors those were, and without which there would be no Myrtle Beach State Park, no ninety candles, no cupcakes.

The story starts in 1934, when Myrtle Beach Farms donated 312 acres of oceanfront land to the state. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal had created the CCC the year before, putting unemployed young men to work on conservation projects across the country, and South Carolina put its enrollees to work on the coast. They cleared trails, raised buildings of timber and brick, and shaped a raw stretch of maritime forest into a public park. When the gates opened on July 1, 1936, Myrtle Beach State Park became the first park to open in the South Carolina state park system — the original, the one against which the other forty-some parks that followed are still measured.

Sixteen Parks, One Legacy

Wilson told the crowd that the CCC’s fingerprints are all over the state. Sixteen South Carolina state parks trace their construction to the Corps, a roster that runs from the mountains to the sea: Aiken, Barnwell, Cheraw, Chester, Edisto Beach, Givhans Ferry, Hunting Island, Kings Mountain, Lake Greenwood, Lee, Oconee, Paris Mountain, Poinsett, Sesquicentennial, Table Rock — and Myrtle Beach, the one that opened first. Several of the buildings the CCC raised here in the 1930s are still in daily use, which is a sentence you cannot write about much else on the Grand Strand. Most remarkably, the park’s six rental cabins — furnished, heated, air-conditioned, tucked two hundred yards from the beach — are original CCC construction. Families sleep tonight in rooms built by hand during the Great Depression, and there is something quietly astonishing about that.

The old CCC bathhouse figures prominently in the park’s photo archive too. One image displayed at the celebration, dated 1940, shows visitors playing games on the bathhouse’s top floor — a reminder that even in its earliest years, the park was never merely scenery. It was a gathering place, built to be used hard and loved harder, and the wear of ninety summers shows in the best possible way.

Nine Decades Spread Across a Picnic Table

The most affecting exhibit at the celebration required no screen, no headset, no admission line. It was a set of historic photographs laid flat across picnic tables in the July sun, weighted against the sea breeze, free for anyone to lean over and study. And people did lean, all day long — grandparents narrating for grandchildren, strangers comparing notes, everyone playing the same game of then-and-now.

The images traced the park’s whole arc. A July 1938 photograph showed the park entrance just two years after opening, the road narrow, the trees younger and thinner than the cathedral canopy that shades the entrance drive today. The 1940 shot captured that game-playing crowd atop the CCC bathhouse. A 1959 image showed a line of campers cresting a hill — the tail end of the decade when the American family camping vacation became a national institution, and this campground became one of its southern capitals. Another photo from August 1959 recorded the vending and camping registration operation, all clipboards and window fans, a world away from today’s online reservation system. And then there was the photograph that made the older locals go quiet: Pier No. 4 under reconstruction after Hurricane Hugo, the 1989 storm that rearranged the South Carolina coast and taught a generation what the ocean can take away.

That Hugo photograph carries a lesson that runs through the park’s entire history: nothing here has survived ninety years by accident. The buildings, the pier, the forest itself — all of it has been defended, repaired and rebuilt, storm after storm, by people who decided the place was worth the trouble. Which brings us to the pier.

The Pier That Refuses to Stay Down

Every fishing pier on the Grand Strand has a biography, and the one at Myrtle Beach State Park reads like a boxer’s. The structure standing today is the fourth pier built at the park, its predecessor famously battered by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and rebuilt. Then came the modern chapter: Hurricane Ian damaged the pier in the fall of 2022, and just as repairs wrapped up and the park prepared to reopen it in December 2023, a nor’easter blew through on December 17 and knocked out two support pilings. Emergency repairs followed, and in July 2024 the pier finally reopened in full — to genuine celebration, because as park manager Troy Crider told MyHorryNews at the time, the pier is probably the single most popular feature of the entire park.

It is easy to see why. Walk to the end of it on a clear morning and look north: the sculptured oaks of the park rise straight from the sand, a green wall of maritime forest, and where the park boundary ends the high-rises begin and run unbroken toward the horizon. No other vantage point on the Grand Strand shows you so plainly what was saved and what was built. Crider, who grew up in the state park service and worked his way from a seasonal summer job to the manager’s office by way of a recreation degree at Coastal Carolina University, has said the pier matters precisely because it makes that contrast impossible to ignore — it stands guard over one of the last beachfront green spaces on the entire strand.

Fishing the Pier in 2026

The pier is a working fishing platform, and the fishing is serious. Anglers pull flounder, whiting, trout, spots, Spanish mackerel, king mackerel, drum and bluefish from these waters, and crabbing off the rails is a family tradition older than most of the families practicing it. Here is the arrangement that surprises first-timers: you do not need a South Carolina fishing license to fish from the pier itself. You pay a daily pier fishing pass instead — currently $8 for ages 16 and up, $5 for South Carolina seniors and disabled residents, $3 for children 6 to 15, and free for ages 5 and under — and rod rentals are available from the pier gift shop for $25 a day with a refundable deposit. Surf fishing from the beach is a different matter: that requires a state saltwater license and is not permitted where lifeguards are on duty. Shark fishing from the pier is prohibited outright. The pier store opens at 6:30 each morning, which is exactly when the serious anglers — and the serious sunrise-watchers — want to be there anyway.

One Mile of Beach the Way the Whole Coast Used to Be

The statistic that best explains this park is the simplest one: it protects one full mile of undeveloped beach in Horry County, a county where undeveloped oceanfront is otherwise nearly extinct. Behind that beach stands a maritime forest of live oaks and southern magnolias so significant it has been designated a South Carolina Heritage Trust Site, its dunes anchored by sea oats and shaped into one of the most expansive natural dune systems left on this stretch of coast.

Two nature trails thread through it. The Sculptured Oak Nature Trail takes its name honestly — the salt wind has carved the oaks along it into leaning, wind-swept shapes you will not forget — and the shorter Yaupon Nature Trail offers an easy walk through the same forest by a different route. Between them sits the park’s Nature Center, open Tuesday through Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with saltwater aquariums, live animals and interactive natural history exhibits that turn a rained-out beach day into the best afternoon of a kid’s vacation.

The beach itself works a double shift. By day it belongs to swimmers and shell hunters, with Horry County lifeguards stationed on the park’s north section from mid-May through mid-September and umbrellas and chairs available to rent right from the lifeguard stands. By night, in season, it belongs to the loggerheads. Even here, in the middle of the busiest resort coast in the Carolinas, sea turtles still haul themselves ashore to nest, and the park’s rangers manage those nests with the devotion of people guarding something irreplaceable. Ranger Ann Malys Wilson, the same interpreter who led the anniversary program, has long taught visitors the simple habits that help the turtles: fill in the holes you dig, carry out your litter, and keep beach-facing lights red and dim during nesting season. It costs a vacationer nothing and it keeps a ninety-year-old promise the park made to this coast.

And for those who cannot bear to leave at closing time, the park remains one of the most beloved places to camp on the entire East Coast seaboard: 278 campsites — 138 of them with full water, electric and sewer hookups — plus a 30-site seasonal tent area and those six original CCC cabins, all of it roughly three hundred yards from the sand, all of it under the trees.

The Historical Goose Chase Runs All July

Miss the party on July 1? The park planned for you. Throughout the entire month of July 2026, Myrtle Beach State Park is running a monthlong Historical Goose Chase — a self-guided challenge that sends participants around the park completing history-themed tasks. Finish the challenges, turn in your completed paperwork, and you can receive a commemorative 90th anniversary T-shirt, the kind of souvenir that cannot be bought at any gift shop on Ocean Boulevard because it has to be earned on foot, under the oaks, in the place itself.

For families vacationing on the Grand Strand this month, the Goose Chase is a ready-made half-day adventure: part scavenger hunt, part history lesson, part excuse to explore corners of the park — the trails, the pier, the old CCC structures — that a beach-only visit would miss. Details are posted through the park’s official channels at southcarolinaparks.com, and the rangers at the entrance station can point you in the right direction when you arrive.

Planning Your Visit: Hours, Admission and What to Know

The park sits at 4401 South Kings Highway in Myrtle Beach, just south of the former Air Force base, and in summer it operates on generous hours: 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily from March through November, closing at 8 p.m. December through February. Admission at the gate is $8 for adults, $5 for South Carolina seniors 65 and older, $4 for children 6 to 15, and free for children 5 and under — still one of the great entertainment bargains on the Grand Strand, considering it buys a full day of beach, pier, trails and Nature Center.

One honest word of warning for July visitors: this park is popular, and parking is first-come, first-served and limited. On summer weekends and holidays the park can reach capacity between roughly 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and temporarily close its gates until crowds thin. The rangers’ advice is simple and correct — arrive early or arrive late. Early is better anyway. The light is softer, the fishing is better, the sand is cooler, and you will have the Sculptured Oak Trail nearly to yourself.

Making the Day Trip from North Myrtle Beach

From North Myrtle Beach, the state park is an easy day trip — roughly fifteen miles down the coast, twenty-five to thirty-five minutes by car depending on where you start and how Kings Highway is behaving. Guests staying up in Cherry Grove Beach, at the northern tip of the city near the marsh and the fishing pier, should budget a few extra minutes; those staying along Ocean Drive, the shag-dancing heart of North Myrtle Beach, or in the quieter blocks of Crescent Beach will find the run straightforward — south on Highway 17, and keep going past the airport. From Windy Hill, the southernmost of North Myrtle Beach’s four beach sections and the closest to the park, the drive is shortest of all.

The smart play in July: leave early enough to clear the park gate before 10 a.m., spend the morning on the pier and the trails, picnic under the oaks, work the Goose Chase challenges after lunch, and be back in North Myrtle Beach in time for a late-afternoon swim on your own stretch of sand. It is the rare Grand Strand outing that costs a family less than a round of mini golf and sends everyone home with a history lesson, a sunburn worth having, and possibly a commemorative T-shirt.

And here is the pleasant irony of visiting a ninety-year-old park from a North Myrtle Beach vacation rental: you get both versions of the coast in a single day. The park shows you the shoreline as it was in 1936 — wild dunes, wind-carved oaks, a beach with nothing behind it but forest. Then you drive home to the shoreline as it became — and if home for the week is one of the oceanfront homes along the North Myrtle Beach strand, or a high-floor view from one of the area’s oceanfront condos, you will watch that evening’s sunset over the same Atlantic the CCC boys saw when they knocked off work in 1935, and you will understand exactly why they thought this coast was worth building something permanent on.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: MyHorryNews, “Myrtle Beach State Park celebrates 90th anniversary” (July 2026); MyHorryNews, “‘Everybody loves the pier’: After storm damage, pier reopens at Myrtle Beach State Park” (July 2024); South Carolina State Parks official site, Myrtle Beach State Park pages (park hours, admission, camping, fishing and 90th birthday announcements, accessed July 2026); WBTW News13 coverage of the December 2023 nor’easter pier damage. Event details, prices and hours verified as of July 2026 and subject to change; confirm current information with the park at (843) 238-5325 or southcarolinaparks.com before visiting.

From Smokestacks to Sand: Conway’s 800-Acre Waterfront Transformation Is the Biggest Story on the Grand Strand

For fifty years, you knew you were getting close to Conway when the smokestacks appeared. Two 300-foot concrete towers rising out of the lowcountry green like monuments to a different era, visible from Highway 501 for miles, as much a landmark of the drive to the beach as the South of the Border signs or the first salt-air breath at the Intracoastal. The Grainger Generating Station burned coal to light the Grand Strand from the 1960s until 2012, and when its stacks finally came down in 2016, the skyline along the Waccamaw River went quiet for the first time in half a century.

What nobody driving past that empty site could have guessed is what Conway has been quietly planning to put in its place. An inland beach. A 100-slip marina. A 3.5-mile extension of the Conway Riverwalk threading through wetlands and connecting the entire downtown waterfront into one continuous corridor. An amphitheater. A mixed-use village of shops, restaurants, a hotel and waterfront residences. Eight hundred acres of former industrial land — given to the city by Santee Cooper, cleared of more than a million tons of coal ash, certified safe by state regulators, and now officially in the hands of the people of Conway — becoming what City Administrator Adam Emrick has compared to a state park in the middle of downtown.

That is not a someday-maybe idea on a planning board. The land transfer is complete. The annexation vote passed. The $80 million financing plan is approved. Engineering is underway. A canal on the property has already reopened for public boating and fishing — the first concrete step in a transformation that Conway’s mayor has called a once-in-a-generation opportunity and that Emrick, who has shepherded the project for years, puts in even starker terms: once every several generations does a city get a chance like this.

For anyone who vacations on the Grand Strand — and especially for the families who come back year after year to the quieter sands of North Myrtle Beach — this is worth watching. Conway is already one of the best day trips on the coast, and it is about to become something no other small town in the Carolinas can match.

The Ghost of the Grainger Plant

The backstory matters because it explains why 800 acres of prime waterfront land existed in the first place, hidden in plain sight along one of the busiest highways in Horry County. The Grainger Generating Station was a Santee Cooper coal-fired power plant that sat at the intersection of U.S. 501 and the Waccamaw River, less than a mile from downtown Conway. Lake Busbee, a 330-acre man-made cooling pond, sprawled across the other side of the highway, and together the plant and its support infrastructure occupied roughly 808 acres of land that the public was not allowed to use.

The plant ran for decades, powering the Grand Strand through its transformation from a quiet beach town into one of the most visited resort coasts on the East Coast. It closed in 2012. The twin smokestacks came down in 2016, and with them went the last visible evidence that the site had ever been industrial at all. What remained was the land itself — hundreds of acres of waterfront straddling the highway, flanked by the river and the wetlands, in the middle of a county that was growing faster than almost anywhere in the Southeast. Conway’s leaders saw the opportunity immediately. It just took a decade to get the land.

The path ran through a coal ash cleanup (more on that below), a Santee Cooper board vote in December 2023, a Joint Bond Review Committee approval in March 2024, and a formal property transfer completed in April 2025. On July 23, 2025, Conway held a public ceremony to mark the acquisition, and city officials, Santee Cooper leaders and community members stood on the land together for the first time as owners. The smokestacks were gone. The coal ash was gone. And the vision — the one Emrick had been describing in council meetings and planning retreats for years — was finally, officially, possible.

What Is Coming: Inland Beach, Marina, Riverwalk and Amphitheater

The plan for the former Grainger site is ambitious in scope but disciplined in its conservation commitment. Of the roughly 808 acres, approximately 533 acres — essentially all of Lake Busbee — have been rezoned to the city’s Conservation Preservation district and will be left in their restored natural state as wetlands and wildlife habitat. The Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge is expected to help tend the lake. Only 12 to 15 acres are designated for private commercial development. Everything else becomes public space — trails, water, sand and sky.

The centerpiece is the inland beach, planned for the site of the former Coal Ash Pond No. 1 — the pond closest to the Horry County Government Annex, which has been fully cleared, remediated and certified safe for public use by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. The beach will be a freshwater recreation area designed for swimming, kayaking and paddleboarding in a controlled environment without motorized boat traffic — a distinction that will appeal to families with young children who want the water without the worry.

Adjacent to the beach, the city plans a new inland marina with approximately 100 boat slips, which would connect to the Waccamaw River and relieve the persistent waitlist problem at Conway’s existing downtown marina. An amphitheater for concerts, festivals and community events is planned near the intersection of Elm Street and Marina Drive, at the site of old tennis courts. And threading through it all: a 3.5-mile extension of the Conway Riverwalk, weaving through wetlands and restored landscapes to link the new recreation zone to the existing downtown Riverwalk along the Waccamaw. When complete, the combined walkway system will create one of the longest continuous waterfront trails in the South Carolina lowcountry.

The Mixed-Use Village

The 12 to 15 acres set aside for private development would be brought to life through public-private partnerships once the infrastructure is in place. Draft plans show a mixed-use village with shops, restaurants, a hotel and waterfront condominiums — the kind of walkable, water-facing development that has worked at Market Common in Myrtle Beach, another former military/industrial site successfully converted to community use. Mayor Barbara Blain-Bellamy has said the area could see restaurants, shops, boat docks and possibly a downtown hotel or two, all tied into the broader recreational footprint. The scale is modest by design: this is not a high-rise district. It is a village that sits inside a park.

The Cleanup That Made It Possible

No story about this property is complete without the part that people rightly ask about first: the coal ash. The Grainger plant left behind two ash ponds containing residual coal combustion waste — material that, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, can contain contaminants including mercury, cadmium and arsenic. In 2013, the Southern Environmental Law Center sued Santee Cooper over pollution at the site, and the two sides reached a settlement that set the cleanup in motion.

Over the following years, Santee Cooper removed more than a million tons of coal ash from the two ponds, dug an additional foot of soil from beneath the pits, and restored the land above to wetlands. Santee Cooper CEO Jimmy Staton addressed the safety question directly at the July 2025 celebration, stating that the utility went through extensive remediation and that people should not be concerned about any lingering effects. DHEC has certified the former Ash Pond No. 1 as safe for the recreational purposes the city intends to use it for. Santee Cooper will continue to monitor groundwater at the site going forward. Lake Busbee itself still carries environmental restrictive covenants from the closure process and will be left in its restored natural state rather than opened for swimming or fishing — a decision that honors both the ecological reality and the conservation commitment at the heart of the project.

The canal that once served the plant’s industrial operations has already been restored and opened to the public for boating and fishing, a milestone that Mayor Blain-Bellamy confirmed in July 2025 and called the first step in the city’s vision for the property. As the mayor put it: what once held coal ash now holds opportunity, and what once served machines will now serve people.

How Conway Is Paying for It: The $80 Million Plan

The financial architecture behind this project is as deliberate as the land plan. Conway carries no municipal debt — a remarkable fact for a city of its size — and the initial phases of the project will be funded through hospitality fee revenue already collected by the city. For the larger build-out, the city created a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district covering the downtown and Lake Busbee area, a financing tool that allows the city to fund infrastructure improvements using the property tax revenue generated by the new development itself. Conway City Council approved the TIF ordinance in December 2025.

City officials project that the TIF district could generate as much as $170.5 million in revenue over the coming decades — far more than the $80 million price tag of the public infrastructure plan — making the project self-sustaining over time. It is the same financing model that helped transform the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base into Market Common, and Conway’s leaders have cited that precedent as proof of concept. The private-side development (hotels, restaurants, residences) would come later through public-private partnerships and would not rely on city funds.

Timeline: When Will It Be Built?

This is the question everyone asks, and the honest answer is: it is a multi-year, multi-phase project, and the city has been transparent about the timeline. City Administrator Adam Emrick has said publicly that engineering work alone will take 18 to 24 months — a period of site planning, permitting and design that began after the July 2025 land transfer. Following that, he has estimated two to three years of construction to bring the major elements online. The WMBF report from the July 2025 celebration cited a five- to six-year total window before residents and visitors see the full transformation take shape.

Importantly, Emrick has said the work will be phased so that people start seeing visible progress before the entire project is complete. The canal is already open. Trail connections, the Riverwalk extension and the inland beach are likely among the earlier phases; the mixed-use village and hotel components, which depend on private-sector partnerships, will follow once the public infrastructure is in place. WBTW reported in July 2025 that officials cited a three-year construction timeline for the inland beach and kayaking areas specifically.

What visitors to the Grand Strand should expect in the near term: the property is not yet a recreation destination in 2026, but you can already boat and fish the restored canal, and the Lake Busbee trail remains accessible to walkers and birders. The real construction activity — earthmoving, boardwalk pilings, beach grading — will become visible over the next two to three years, and if the phased timeline holds, the first major public amenities could open as early as 2028 or 2029. For a project of this scale, that is remarkably fast.

Conway’s Riverwalk Is Already Worth the Drive

Even before a single shovel hits the Grainger site, Conway is a town that rewards the visitor who makes the twenty-minute drive inland from the beach. The existing Conway Riverwalk runs along the Waccamaw River through downtown, a boardwalk of cypress planks over dark water, lined with live oaks and Spanish moss, connecting shops and restaurants to the marina and the old railroad trestle. On a weekday morning it belongs to joggers and dog walkers; on a Saturday evening it belongs to families finishing dinner at Rivertown Bistro or walking to the Theatre of the Republic for a show. The city recently completed a Riverwalk expansion connecting the riverfront to Main Street, adding floating docks, irregular-shaped viewing decks and gated access near Kingston Presbyterian Church — a roughly $2.3 million project that bridged the gap between downtown and the water.

Downtown Conway itself is a Main Street town in the best sense of the phrase: locally owned shops, a weekly farmers market, the Horry County Museum, the Conway Glass & Art Gallery, bakeries and bookshops and the kind of storefront restaurants where the owner knows your name by the second visit. The Theatre of the Republic, a community theater that has been producing plays in the old fire station on Main Street since 1968, is a genuine local institution. The Waccamaw River — blackwater, cypress-lined, rich with wildlife — is a kayaking destination in its own right, and guided paddling tours launch from the marina regularly during the warmer months.

This is the foundation onto which the Lake Busbee project is being built. The Riverwalk extension will not start from scratch; it will connect to a waterfront system that already works and already draws visitors. Adding 3.5 miles of new trail, an inland beach, a 100-slip marina and an amphitheater does not change what Conway is — it amplifies it. The town that has always been the quiet, oak-shaded heart of the Grand Strand is about to have the physical space to match that identity at a scale nobody expected.

Making the Day Trip from North Myrtle Beach

Conway is roughly 20 miles from North Myrtle Beach, a straight shot west on Highway 9 or south on Highway 17 to Highway 501. From Cherry Grove Beach or Ocean Drive, plan on 30 to 40 minutes. From Crescent Beach or Windy Hill, closer to 25 to 35 minutes. It is one of the easiest and most underrated day trips from the beach, especially on a rainy morning or a hot afternoon when a change of scenery sounds better than another hour under an umbrella.

Right now, the Riverwalk, the downtown shops, the museums and the kayaking are reason enough to go. In a few years, when the inland beach opens and the extended boardwalk threads through the wetlands and the amphitheater starts hosting summer concerts, Conway will be a full-day destination — the kind of place where families staying in an oceanfront home or oceanfront condo in North Myrtle Beach build an entire day around the river, the trails, the shops and the food, then drive back to the ocean for sunset.

Mayor Blain-Bellamy has said that Conway wants to re-establish itself not just as a destination but as the gateway to the Grand Strand — the place visitors pass through on 501 and stop because they cannot help themselves. With 800 acres of waterfront, an inland beach, a new marina and a Riverwalk that could soon rival any in the state, that gateway is about to have a very different front door.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: WBTW News13, “Conway celebrates historic transfer of Lake Busbee property into city limits,” Adam Benson (July 24, 2025); WMBF News, “‘Once-in-a-generation opportunity’: Santee Cooper transfers 800 acres to city of Conway for redevelopment” (July 23, 2025); WPDE ABC15, “Conway’s plan to transform old coal plant into vibrant waterfront” (July 24, 2025); MyHorryNews, “Conway leaders look to rezone former ash pond, Lake Busbee site,” S.T. Cardinal (July 22, 2025); The Post and Courier Myrtle Beach, “Power plant to marina? Santee Cooper looks to transfer 800-plus acres to Conway,” Charles D. Perry (December 5, 2023); WBTW News13, “Conway, Horry County school officials meet over city’s planned $80M downtown redevelopment vision” (November 18, 2025); WBTW News13, “Conway leaders advance financing plan for $80M downtown revitalization project” (December 2, 2025); Santee Cooper press release, “Santee Cooper Approves Transactions That Offer Significant Community Benefits” (December 4, 2023); City of Conway official site, Riverwalk Expansion announcement. Project details, timelines and plans verified as of July 2026 and are subject to change as engineering and permitting progress.