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).

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.

Things to Do for Father’s Day in North Myrtle Beach

June comes to North Myrtle Beach the way the best days always do — quietly, without announcing itself, the tide already moving by the time you’ve had your first cup of coffee and found your way to the porch. The pelicans work the shallows with a kind of indifference to time that men spend their whole careers trying to imitate. Father’s Day here has that same unhurried quality. It doesn’t ask anything of you. It just opens up along nine miles of coastline and waits.

Father’s Day 2026 falls on Sunday, June 21 — the longest days of the year, when the sun doesn’t fully set until past eight and there’s genuinely no excuse to come inside early. If you’ve ever wanted to give a dad something better than a novelty grilling apron and a Hallmark card, this is the year to do it properly. North Myrtle Beach’s nine miles of coastline, bracketed by Cherry Grove Beach to the north and Windy Hill to the south, contain just about everything a man could want for a day — fishing piers, golf courses, fishing charters, boat cruises, saltwater marshes to kayak, horses to ride along the surf, and enough good seafood to make a serious dent in the day’s catch.

What follows is a guide to doing Father’s Day right on the Grand Strand — not a list of generic suggestions, but a real map to the places and experiences that make this stretch of the South Carolina coast so good at this time of year. The charters are real, the golf courses are open and in shape, and the dinner reservations you’ll want to make sooner rather than later.

Fishing: Pier, Inshore, and Deep Sea

Ask most dads what they’d actually like to do for Father’s Day and the honest ones will tell you: go fishing. North Myrtle Beach obliges with options that run from a casual morning on the pier to a full offshore charter that puts you miles out in the Atlantic chasing mahi-mahi. June is one of the better fishing months along the Grand Strand — flounder are moving through the inshore waters, king mackerel are running off the pier, and the weather is warm enough that nobody minds getting a little spray in the face.

Cherry Grove Fishing Pier

The Cherry Grove Fishing Pier at 3502 N. Ocean Blvd. is one of the most storied fishing piers on the Atlantic coast — stretching 985 feet over the ocean with a two-story observation deck at the end and a history that includes the record catch of the largest tiger shark ever landed from shore in the United States. It opens daily at 6 a.m. and stays open until 11 p.m., which means dad can be out there before the rest of the family has had breakfast. Rod rentals run $26 and king mackerel passes are $30. The pier also has the Driftwoods restaurant on site for when the morning appetite kicks in. No charter booking required — just show up, pay the admission, and find a spot on the rail.

Captain Smiley Fishing Charters

For a guided inshore experience, Captain Smiley Fishing Charters out of Little River (4495 Baker St.) has been putting families on fish in the salt marshes and inshore waters around the Grand Strand for years. Inshore trips target redfish, flounder, speckled trout, and the various species that move through the backwaters around Cherry Grove Inlet in June. All equipment is provided, including the required fishing license — the family shows up and fishes. Father’s Day weekend books up fast; the captain’s team recommends reserving well ahead of the holiday. The phone is (843) 361-7445.

Voyager Fishing Charters

If the deep blue is calling — mahi-mahi, blackfin tuna, grouper, snapper — Voyager Fishing Charters at Dock Holidays Marina (1525 13th Ave N., North Myrtle Beach) runs a full menu of offshore options including half-day, full-day, and the crowd-favorite night shark fishing trips. For a dad who has already done the pier and wants something with a little more horizon in it, Voyager is the answer. Multi-day and Gulf Stream packages are also available for the true enthusiast.

Golf on the Grand Strand

North Myrtle Beach is serious golf country. The Grand Strand claims more golf courses per square mile than almost anywhere else in the country, and the courses in the northern end of the Strand — where the crowds thin out and the marsh views get genuinely spectacular — are worth a special trip on their own. Father’s Day weekend puts you on the course in the heart of the season, when the fairways are lush and the late-afternoon rounds end in some of the best light of the year.

Tidewater Golf Club

Tidewater Golf Club at 1400 Tidewater Drive in North Myrtle Beach routinely places on Golf Digest’s list of America’s Top 100 public courses — a ranking that the course has earned honestly, not through marketing. Designed by Ken Tomlinson and opened in 1990, Tidewater is positioned on a narrow peninsula between the Intracoastal Waterway and Cherry Grove Inlet, which means that on certain holes the Atlantic Ocean appears in the background of a shot that is already asking a lot of you. The par-three 12th crosses over marshland above Cherry Grove Inlet. The 13th gives you that ocean view from the green that people talk about for years. The course plays to a slope of 144 and stretches to 7,078 yards from the back tees, so dads who want a real challenge will not be disappointed. Book tee times early — (843) 913-2424.

Barefoot Resort & Golf

For the dad who wants to play more than one round, Barefoot Resort & Golf offers four courses on the same property — designed by Greg Norman, Davis Love III, Tom Fazio, and Pete Dye. The Norman course, in particular, has a demanding routing through wetlands and marshes with water in play on virtually every hole. Barefoot’s courses offer a range of difficulty and style that can keep a group of golfers of different abilities genuinely happy across an entire weekend. The resort sits along Highway 17 in North Myrtle Beach, and the courses are bookable individually or as part of packages.

Watersports and Boat Cruises

North Myrtle Beach’s relationship with the water does not begin and end at the shoreline. The Intracoastal Waterway runs the length of the Grand Strand, Waites Island sits just off the Cherry Grove Inlet, and the salt marsh creeks threading through that landscape are their own world entirely — one that rewards anyone willing to climb into a kayak or onto a boat and go exploring. For Father’s Day, the watersports options range from gentle to seriously exciting.

The Barefoot Queen

The Barefoot Queen riverboat operates out of Barefoot Marina at 2051-2 Bridge View Ct., North Myrtle Beach, and offers scenic and dinner cruises along the Intracoastal Waterway. The 70-foot riverboat accommodates up to 130 people and carries live narration and entertainment on every cruise. For Father’s Day weekend, the dinner cruise — which departs at 6 p.m. during peak season — is one of the more elegant ways to celebrate. It combines the slow drift of the waterway at golden hour with a catered buffet-style meal and cocktails available at the onboard bar. The lunch cruise at noon is a solid option for families with younger kids who need an earlier evening. Reservations: (843) 390-2017.

Cherry Grove Kayaking

For a dad who would rather be moving than sitting, Cherry Grove Kayaking delivers kayaks and paddleboards directly to the ramp at Cherry Grove Beach and offers guided tours through the salt marsh out to Waites Island. The Waites Island tour follows the current of the rising tide through the marsh channels, past bald eagles and blue herons, and lands on the uninhabited barrier island that most beachgoers never reach. The trip is appropriate for children and requires no prior kayaking experience. Three-hour self-guided rental packages are also available for groups who want to move at their own pace. Visit cherrygrovekayaking.com to book.

Jet Skis, Parasailing, and Watersports

Along Ocean Drive and Crescent Beach, several established operators run jet ski rentals, parasailing, and banana boat rides through peak season. Action Water Sportz and East Coast Jet Ski Adventures both offer jet ski rentals along the North Myrtle Beach coastline, while New Wave Watersports and Atlantic Watersports handle parasailing for those who want the bird’s-eye view of the strand. If the dad in the group has never looked down at nine miles of white sand from a few hundred feet in the air, Father’s Day is a decent occasion to change that.

Horseback Riding on Waites Island

This one lands differently than most Father’s Day activities, because very few people expect it. Inlet Point Plantation Stables, located at 5800 Little River Neck Road in North Myrtle Beach, offers guided horseback rides on Waites Island — a 1,380-acre uninhabited barrier island just off Cherry Grove Inlet that is accessible only by boat or van shuttle from the plantation itself. You ride along the ocean, feet from the surf, on a beach that has no houses, no umbrellas, and no traffic. The horses are well-trained Tennessee Walkers and Warmbloods. The guides know the island’s history, which runs from ancient Waccamaw tribal settlements back some 2,600 years.

The one-hour beach ride is appropriate for any skill level and for riders age seven and up. The sunset beach ride — offered Monday through Thursday with two days’ advance notice — is a particular gem for Father’s Day weekend, sending the last light of the day across the water in exactly the way postcards always promise and rarely deliver. The plantation is open Monday through Saturday, so Saturday, June 20 is an excellent day to book. Riders must be at least seven years old, and there is a weight limit of 240 pounds. Reservations are essential; visit inletpointplantation.com or call ahead.

Where to Take Dad for Dinner

Dinner on Father’s Day weekend in North Myrtle Beach is its own event. The best waterfront tables fill up days in advance, particularly at Barefoot Landing — a complex of restaurants, shops, and entertainment built along the Intracoastal Waterway that has more good dining options within walking distance of each other than most mid-sized cities. Plan ahead, make reservations, and remember that whoever shows up first to Cherry Grove Pier or Tidewater Golf Club gets to pick the restaurant.

Greg Norman Australian Grille

The Greg Norman Australian Grille at Barefoot Landing is where you take the dad who considers steak a serious matter. Perched directly on the Intracoastal Waterway, the restaurant has held a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence for more than 15 consecutive years. The menu draws on Australian beef traditions alongside local seafood and carries an extensive wine program that treats the cellar as the equal of the kitchen. The waterfront deck at dusk, with a bone-in cut and a glass of Barossa Shiraz, is a specific kind of experience that most dads won’t stop talking about by July.

LuLu’s North Myrtle Beach

LuLu’s at Barefoot Landing is the choice when the family has kids who need an activity alongside their meal — the complex includes an arcade, a ropes course, and live music on the waterfront. The menu is built on fresh seafood with a coastal Gulf South influence, and the atmosphere runs warm and cheerful rather than precious. It’s a genuinely fun place on a Saturday afternoon when the whole family is still sandy from the beach and no one wants to put on their good shoes.

Flying Fish Public Market & Grill

The Flying Fish Public Market & Grill at Barefoot Landing is built on a simple, honest premise: get the freshest local seafood and treat it well. The market format means a rotating selection of what’s actually running off the Grand Strand coast — local shrimp, deep-sea scallops, whatever the boats brought in that morning. For a dad who spent the morning on Cherry Grove Pier, there’s a particular satisfaction in eating the ocean’s output at a waterfront table that evening.

21 Main at North Beach Resort

For a more formal occasion, 21 Main at North Beach Resort and Villas brings USDA Prime steaks, fresh seafood, and a sushi program together in an upscale setting with Intracoastal views and outdoor terrace seating. The lounge opens at 4 p.m. with cocktails; the dining room follows at 5 p.m. Valet parking is complimentary in the traffic circle. If the family is celebrating something beyond Father’s Day — a birthday, a milestone, the first trip everyone has taken together in years — 21 Main has the right weight to it.

Live Music and Evening Entertainment

North Myrtle Beach has called itself the birthplace of Carolina Beach Music for decades, and in June that claim gets tested every week. The city’s Music on Main Concert Series brings free live performances to the Horseshoe at 11 S. Ocean Blvd. every Thursday evening from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. through September. For Father’s Day weekend in 2026, the Thursday before — June 18 — features Tru Sol on the Main Street stage. The event is free, open to all ages, and set up for exactly the kind of unhurried evening that Father’s Day weekend deserves: beach chairs in the street, cold drinks nearby, and a band that knows how to move a crowd.

This year’s Music on Main carries a special theme — “Celebrating America’s 250” — in honor of the nation’s semiquincentennial, with select bands weaving patriotic material into their sets and July shows inviting audiences in red, white, and blue. Horseshoe parking closes at 2 p.m. on concert days; chairs are permitted after 3 p.m. Main Street from Ocean Boulevard closes to traffic at 4:30 p.m. Golf cart parking is available with limited spaces. For the full 2026 schedule, visit nmb.us.

Barefoot Landing runs live music throughout the summer season as well, with performances at LandShark Bar & Grill, LuLu’s, and other waterfront venues most evenings. The Alabama Theatre on the Barefoot Landing property offers ticketed shows for larger productions. And at Coconuts Tiki Bar on Ocean Drive — the only oceanfront tiki bar in North Myrtle Beach — the combination of specialty cocktails, live music, and the Atlantic directly in front of you makes for a fine end to any Father’s Day.

The Beach Itself

It would be a mistake to fill a Father’s Day in North Myrtle Beach so full of planned activities that there’s no time left for the thing that brought everyone here in the first place. The beach at Crescent Beach and Cherry Grove in the morning, before the crowds arrive, is as uncomplicated a pleasure as exists in American life. The water is warm in June — usually in the low-to-mid 80s — and the shore is wide enough that a family can spread out with chairs and a cooler and not feel like they’re sharing a parking lot with strangers.

For the oceanfront experience without the planning — no reservations, no equipment, no itinerary — the stretch of Windy Hill beach tends to be quieter than the sections closer to Main Street, making it well-suited for a morning where the goal is simply to be somewhere beautiful with people you love. From an oceanfront home rental, the beach is already in the backyard — which is, in the end, the cleanest version of the whole idea.

A Father’s Day Weekend Planner

For families arriving Friday evening and staying through Sunday, here is a framework that actually works — not scheduled to the minute, but sequenced so that the activities flow into each other and the day’s big moments land where they should.

Friday Evening — Arrive and Orient

Get to the rental, walk the beach, and find the nearest place to get dinner without making a production of it. LandShark Bar & Grill at Barefoot Landing is reliable for this — outdoor seating, live music, no dress code, and a menu wide enough that everyone finds something. The ICW view at night, with the lights of the waterway reflecting on the water, is a gentle way to announce that the weekend has begun.

Saturday, June 20 — Dad’s Day to Choose

Saturday is when the activities happen. Golf at Tidewater is best in the morning before the heat builds — tee times in the 8–10 a.m. range put you back at the rental by early afternoon. Alternatively, a fishing charter departs at first light and has dad back at the dock by noon, with enough time for a salt marsh kayak run in the afternoon or a horseback ride at Inlet Point Plantation before dinner. Reserve the Greg Norman Australian Grille or 21 Main for Saturday evening — these tables do not sit unsold on Father’s Day weekend.

Sunday, June 21 — Father’s Day

Keep it simple. Morning at Cherry Grove Pier with rod rentals. Brunch at Flying Fish. An afternoon on the beach at Crescent Beach with nowhere particular to be. The Barefoot Queen dinner cruise at 6 p.m. as a send-off — two hours on the waterway with dinner and entertainment, back at the dock before nine. If someone wants to extend the evening, Coconuts Tiki Bar is fifteen minutes away and open late.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: Cherry Grove Pier (cherrygrovepier.com); Captain Smiley Fishing Charters (captainsmileyfishingcharters.com); Voyager Fishing Charters; Tidewater Golf Club (tidewatergolf.com); Barefoot Resort & Golf; Inlet Point Plantation (inletpointplantation.com); Cherry Grove Kayaking (cherrygrovekayaking.com); Barefoot Queen Riverboat (barefootqueen.com); Music on Main Concert Series, City of North Myrtle Beach (nmb.us); North Myrtle Beach Times (nmbtimes.com); Explore North Myrtle Beach (explorenorthmyrtlebeach.com). All event and venue information verified for June 2026.