CHARLESTON
​I have mixed thoughts on Charleston. I think you need to visit the city during the week. And I think you need to take a deeper dive outside the historical area. It’s not to say that spending a weekend eating and drinking in Charleston’s historical area wouldn’t be a great weekend…because it would be…but it’s to say that if that’s all you did it’d be difficult to get a vibe for what Charleston is really like.
Case in point. The first meal I ate in Charleston was a Gullah rice dish from My Three Sons. Gullah is a Charleston region specific cuisine with roots tracing back to Eastern Africa. Gullah rice had a jambalaya-esq taste but this was all rice, no liquid, and huge chunks of sausage, shrimp, and scallops meshed in. The meal costs $6.99. For dinner that night I ordered blue crab rice from a very good restaurant. Blue crab rice is another low country signature Charleston dish. The meal costs $27.00. I’d take the Gullah rice every meal and that’s before factoring in the price difference. So you need to dine outside the historical center.
Then there’s towns like Mt. Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island to the north of Charleston. Great places. Taking Coleman Boulevard / 703 out to these neighborhoods I passed no less than ten restaurants that were rocking and had me regretting eating dinner earlier in the night in Charleston’s historical center. I had a meal at FIG – great meal although nowhere near the levels as Philadelphia’s James Beard restaurants and it had a very quiet atmosphere – and another meal at Hall’s Chophouse – phenomenal steak, phenomenal atmosphere, loved everything about the experience – but you can get these meals in most cities. It felt like you were dining with tourists. Sullivan’s Island has a light house, amazing beach front homes, and a duney beach area. I’d move here instantly.
​To the south is Folly Beach…which is ok…it’s no Sullivan’s Island though.
So what to do in Charleston. Walk. Walk. Walk. And then drive to a few of the sites early in the morning. I was here for a few days, and working for a few of those days, so I had a nice pattern where I’d walk to some parts of the city, drive to other parts, and for several of the sites I visited twice to see how things looked in the early morning relative to later afternoon/early evening – I’ll say this, the Battery and Rainbow row are awesome anytime of day but in the morning? They are at their best.
You walk down King Street the main shopping street (although not many restaurants).
You walk around the College of Charleston Campus.
You walk over to Colonial Lake Park - grab a coffee at Second Street Coffee on the way.
You walk around the Joe Riley Waterfront Park.
You walk down Broad Street - you drink a beer at Blind Tiger.
You walk your dog through Marion Square and over to Wragg Mall.
Sure there’s restaurants but mostly you just walk. And that’s all you need to do to enjoy Charleston.

​(Due to the dog, no revisit to Fort Sumter on this trip.)
Charleston also has a Top 50 global microbrewery, Westbrook Brewing, but I’ve long questioned those rankings and stops at Palmetto Brewing and Revelry Brewing (both with higher Google rankings that I agree with) did nothing to change my mind that for the most part a beer is a beer.
Charleston has several plantations in the surrounding area, most along the Ashley River, and I selected Boone Hall, primarily for it’s oak lined avenue leading the main house. I don’t know who Boone was. I didn’t read much before, there, or after. But it was a fun visit. Fun walking around the site. Interesting to see a wedding set up in the front yard. I imagined the wedding coordinator saying after the service “Now if you walk past the slave quarters and make a right, you’ll see the reception area.”

There’s a nice garden in front to the plantation hall. There’s a horse pen – Annie was much more interested in horses in pens than those pulling carriages. And there’s the canopy of oak trees which never got old.