72 Hours In Charleston, South Carolina

I will have WAY more to share about our 3 days and a few hours in Charleston in the coming weeks. For now as we sit at the airport with nothing but time to kill, I thought I would share a quick rundown of a few insights I have on the things we did.

First of all, I did just a wee bit of research for this Mother/ Daughter trip. Having been to Charleston a few years ago, I knew a bit about the city. With only 2 full days there, we just wanted to make it casual. No rigorous planning.

There were 3 things we were interested in doing.

• Ghost Tour
• Rainbow Row

• Folly Beach (Megan’s request)

The Ghost Tour was pretty much a must do. Megan and I love a great ghost story and we know Charleston is full of legends and mysterious happenings.

We booked our 3 night stay with Days Inn in the historical district. It was the cheapest stay at $103 a night, and while our room was not the most luxurious and the water pressure from the shower was a little sad, it was the perfect place to stay for the money and the location. Really who spends much time in the room anyway? Beds were comfy, air con worked (an absolute blessing), and it was quiet. It was fine and we would stay there again in a heartbeat!

We arrived on Monday early evening. After we checked in, we went for a walk to check out Waterfront Park and the Pineapple Fountain. We took a short walk to the nearest grocery on East Bay Street to pick up a few food items (fridge and microwave in room) and get some water and tea to drink.

By this time it was late and after a full day of travel (3 hours to Midway in Chicago, almost 3 hours at Midway, a 2 hour flight, and a half hour Uber ride to downtown) we were burnt out.

Once we got settled in our room I started researching ghost tours. We couldn’t decide which to do. In typical Facebook fashion up popped a Facebook page for a Charleston Haints and Hoodoo Tour. More of a historical tour featuring a vampire, a mermaid, and Boohag stories and legends, this seemed to be more of what we were interested in. I asked Megan and she said let’s do it. I booked for 10am the next morning.

Which is what started out our Wednesday. I’ll have more about our tour with Andrea in the future.

Once our tour ended, we had a fabulous lunch at 167 Raw. Lobster Roll bucket list item-check! What deliciousness.

After lunch we walked to Rainbow Row for pictures then to the Battery and Battery Park. By this time we were hot and tired! So we went back to Days Inn for an afternoon rest. The heat wore us down. It was in the 80’s but humid. When your walking around it makes for a long day. It happens that we were blessed with some great weather since this was the first sunshine Charleston has seem in conservative days for almost 3 weeks. It has been raining constantly and they had just experienced flooding downtown 2 weeks prior to our visit.

By early evening we were recharged so we set off for King Street. We made a stop at Christophe Artisan Chocolatier, a French chocolate shop that also has, you guessed it, macarons!! We chose our delectable delights and made our way to Blue Bicycle Books (a nostalgic stop for Megan from our last visit and YAllfest).

Not having the right light to take pictures at Rainbow Row earlier in the day, we walked back there and took several photos.

That closed out our full first day in Charleston.

Wednesday started with an excellent breakfast at Toast, attached to our Days Inn and a very popular brunch spot. We had a 20 minute wait for a table. It was worth it.

Then we hit City Market for a little shopping, but the major thing we did was going to Folly Beach about a 30 minute drive from downtown. Folly Beach is the classic little beach town and with a huge stretch of beach, it really wasn’t crowded. I imagine it’s more so on weekends though.

Getting some beach time was on Megan’s list. We enjoyed our time at Folly Beach. After some sun and surf, we walked into the very small town and checked out the surf shops.

When we returned to the pier we took a walk out to the end and took in the cool ocean breeze for awhile and talked about what it would be like to live on the beach.

After about 3 hours at Folly we Ubered it back to downtown.

That was a full day. We walked and got some ice cream at Kilwin’s along the City Market and called it a day.

Thursday our flight was scheduled to depart at 5:00 pm. While that gave us some time until we had to leave for the airport, I think post vacation blues set in before we even left. Megan confessed last night as we watched nightfall from our swing on the waterfront pier, that she didn’t want to leave and I whole heartedly agreed.

So we had another breakfast at Toast, did some quick shopping at the shops along Market Street, and decided to head to the airport early.

Charleston is such a charming city full of history and beauty! What really won us over was the southern hospitality of the people here! Everyone from our Uber drivers, the front desk people at Days Inn, the shop keepers, and the restaurant staff we encountered, were wonderful and incredibly friendly. Being polite with thank you ma’am and a smile never gets old!

Many times as soon as we talked, it was a dead giveaway that we were from Wisconsin. Why I’ll never know cause we certainly do not have an accent!! Hahaha!

So as we wait at the airport for our flight home, I’m already thinking about returning to Charleston in the future, hopefully the not to distant future.

Thank you Charleston for making these 2 Wisconsinites feel at home.

Go explore! The world is waiting.

Lori