Myrtle Beach Named No. 1 U.S. Summer Travel Destination for 2026

By Thomas Beach Vacations  |  April 23, 2026  |  North Myrtle Beach, SC

Tripadvisor’s 2026 Summer Travel Index

On April 22, 2026, Tripadvisor — the world’s largest travel guidance platform — released the initial findings of its annual Summer Travel Index, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, claimed the top spot on the domestic list. The ranking is based on first-party search data collected from February 1 through April 10, 2026, covering trip searches planned for June 1 through August 31, 2026. It reflects where Americans are actually looking to go, not where travel editors think they should.

The results placed Myrtle Beach ahead of perennial heavyweights including New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Nashville. The full top ten domestic destinations for summer 2026 are as follows:

The pattern across the list is hard to miss. Seven of the ten destinations are coastal, and four of those are East Coast or Southeast beach communities — a clear signal about where the American traveler’s heart sits heading into summer 2026. Myrtle Beach sits at the center of that momentum.

Why Myrtle Beach Keeps Winning

There is a reason this stretch of South Carolina coastline has been drawing families and groups for generations, and the Tripadvisor data only confirms what regulars already know. Myrtle Beach delivers. It delivers broad, easily accessible sandy beach. It delivers value that is increasingly hard to find in coastal travel. It delivers a mix of entertainment — from the waterparks along Highway 17 to the live theaters along Celebrity Circle — that keeps households of very different ages satisfied under one roof. When the group is split between a twelve-year-old who wants a water slide and a grandfather who wants a peaceful walk at sunrise, Myrtle Beach handles both without complaint.

Visit Myrtle Beach president Stuart Butler put the appeal plainly when commenting on the ranking, noting that the destination’s standing as an affordable, accessible, drive-to location remains a meaningful advantage at a time when fuel costs and inflation are reshaping how families budget their vacations. A large share of the Grand Strand’s visitors arrive by car from the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic states — and the ability to load a minivan and skip the airport is no small thing in 2026.

The breadth of the product matters too. Broadway at the Beach remains one of the most visited entertainment complexes in the Southeast, anchoring the central Myrtle Beach experience with dozens of restaurants, shops, a laser tag arena, and Ripley’s Aquarium. Further south, Murrells Inlet delivers some of the freshest seafood on the Eastern seaboard, while Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach offers a calmer, waterfront shopping and dining experience that feels a world apart from the strip. The Grand Strand, taken all together, is simply one of the most complete vacation destinations on the East Coast — and search data from one of the world’s largest travel platforms just confirmed it.

The No. 1 Spot for Fourth of July Weekend

The Tripadvisor index broke down travel intent not just by the full summer window but by specific holiday weekends, and the results reinforced what beach regulars have known for years. Myrtle Beach ranked as the top U.S. destination for Fourth of July weekend searches — not just a beach category leader, but the single most-searched domestic destination for the holiday nationally, ahead of Clearwater, Virginia Beach, and every major urban market.

The Fourth of July along the Grand Strand has its own particular rhythm. Communities from Surfside Beach north through Cherry Grove Beach stage fireworks displays over the Atlantic, the kind that reflect off the water and light up the faces of people sitting in beach chairs they dragged out hours early to claim their spot. The boardwalk hums with activity. Restaurants run packed from lunch through late evening. And the neighborhoods of North Myrtle Beach — quieter by design — fill up with families who want the celebration without the traffic jam, gathered on rental home porches watching the sky go orange over the ocean.

What the Grand Strand Offers This Summer

The Grand Strand stretches roughly 60 miles of South Carolina coastline and contains more than enough to fill a week without repeating yourself. This summer, the mix of established attractions and newer arrivals gives visitors strong reasons to explore beyond the beach itself — though the beach alone, stretching wide and flat under a Carolina sky, is reason enough for most people.

For families with younger children, Myrtle Beach’s concentration of waterparks — Wild Water and Wheels in Surfside Beach, Myrtle Waves Water Park on Highway 17 — provides full-day entertainment when the sun is simply too much for prolonged beach time. The SkyWheel on the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk offers a gentler aerial view of the coastline and has become something of an unofficial landmark for first-time visitors. Ripley’s Believe It or Not, adjacent to Broadway at the Beach, continues to draw curious crowds through its multiple attractions.

Evening options shift the tone considerably. The area’s live entertainment venues — Carolina Opry, Pirates Voyage Dinner and Show, and Alabama Theatre in North Myrtle Beach — have been drawing audiences for decades with the kind of stage production that feels specifically designed for a family vacation crowd. Seafood is everywhere, but it ranges from the no-frills buckets-of-shrimp variety at places like Joe’s Bar and Grill to the upscale waterfront dining along the Murrells Inlet Marsh Walk. The common thread is freshness — much of what lands on your plate was in the Atlantic water that morning.

Golf remains one of the Grand Strand’s most recognized draws, with well over 80 courses still operating along the corridor — a density that has made this region one of the premier golf destinations in the country. Summer morning tee times, when the heat is still manageable and the fairways are quiet, carry a particular pleasure that serious golfers plan their trips around.

North Myrtle Beach: The Quieter Side of No. 1

When people search Myrtle Beach, a meaningful share of them end up staying in North Myrtle Beach — and not by accident. The two cities sit about 15 miles apart and operate independently, each with its own government and identity, but they share the same coastline reputation that drove Tripadvisor’s summer ranking. North Myrtle Beach tends to attract the crowd that wants a real beach vacation: more house rental, less hotel strip; more front porch and morning coffee, less neon and all-night noise.

The four beach communities within North Myrtle Beach each carry a distinct feel. Ocean Drive is the oldest and most historically resonant — birthplace of the Carolina shag, a beach dance so embedded in local culture that it has its own official state recognition. Fat Harold’s Beach Club on Main Street is the shrine. Crescent Beach is a quieter residential stretch that families return to year after year for precisely that reason. Windy Hill sits at the southern edge of the city, closest to the Myrtle Beach entertainment corridor and convenient for visitors who want access to both. And Cherry Grove Beach, anchored by its fishing pier and marshside waterways, carries a laid-back charm that is increasingly hard to find anywhere along the East Coast.

Early 2026 occupancy indicators across North Myrtle Beach have been strong. The data that placed the region at the top of national travel searches is not disconnected from what rental calendars are reflecting — summer 2026 is shaping up to be one of the busier seasons in recent memory, particularly for oceanfront home rentals and oceanfront condos that give groups their own space rather than a stack of hotel rooms.

Myrtle Beach has earned the top spot. The people who already know this coast were not surprised by the Tripadvisor ranking. And if you have been circling a summer trip to the Grand Strand for a year or two, waiting for some confirmation that this is still the right call — there it is, in the data, from the largest travel platform on earth.

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