Carolina Pines RV Resort

Myrtle Beach, Conway, and surrounding areas

Do you ever stay somewhere and it feels like nothing is going to plan? I feel like that might sum up our 2 months in the Myrtle Beach area.

We had a long day of travel between Atlanta and Carolina Pines RV Resort and had plans to leave Atlanta by 8:30 that morning. For whatever reason, we left an hour later than we planned. Add in a few more stops than usual, and we arrived at our destination just before dark. Thankfully we were able to get backed into our site and mostly setup before it was completely dark out. We like to arrive with enough daylight to at least explore the park a bit, but that would have to wait for another day.

The first week of our stay here started off with a bang. Quite literally. One sunny, Sunday afternoon we experienced a very loud boom that shook the camper and scared us both. We noticed that several people around us started clapping and had their phones held up to the sky. It turns out that we had heard the first spy balloon get shot down just off the coast of Myrtle Beach, and the debris trails could be seen falling down to the ocean.

A few days later, we listened to emergency vehicles racing past the campground for several minutes. After some searching, I found out that a bank had been robbed and the suspect was running loose a few miles from the campground.

After the first week we were here, we had beautiful weather from Monday afternoon through Friday morning. Then, on the weekends, it was cold and rainy for the whole weekend. The area we stayed in was under drought conditions when we arrived, but after a few weeks of all weekend rain, they were no longer considered to be in a drought. The weather on the weekends started to improve by the end of February.

The owners of the motorhome in the site next to ours were gone for the first two weeks after we arrived. Unfortunately, they had decorated the tree between our sites and we had a wind chime right outside our bedroom window. During the day, the wind chime didn’t usually bother us. But did I mention that a lot of nights were very windy? Running a fan all night helped cover up the nonstop noise so that we could sleep.

Next to the campground, land is being cleared for a new subdivision, with heavy equipment moving dirt and trees and brush being burned away. The construction only happens during the daylight hours, and the noise from the machines really isn’t bad. It’s the dust and smoke from the fires that have really bothered my sinuses and have given me a few headaches.

With the way our stay was starting, we were wondering if we had made a bad decision in picking this resort for our 2 month stay!

One of the good things about this resort is that because we were staying here in the off season, we were able to take advantage of discounted rates that made our stay very affordable! The nightly rate ended up being comparable to what we would pay at a state park or Corps of Engineers park.

It had the best sunset views right out our front door!

We also loved that we were able to spend time with both of our daughters while we were here! Grace was here for work, so we didn’t get to spend much time with her. We will see her again soon, though. Mara was able to spend her entire Spring Break with us, and it was so nice to be able to spend a whole week with her!

The campground that we stayed at was not on the beach, but the highway into Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach was very easy to get to and all of the shops, restaurants, and beaches were just a few miles away. While I wished that we were right on the beach, it was nice to not be down in the constant high traffic areas.

I explored Conway, a historic little town not far from our campground, a few different times. It was very similar to Fairhope, Alabama, in that it had several little locally owned shops, restaurants, and cafes. It also had a lot of historical points of interest and a river walk area. My favorite shop here was Good Day Sunshine. It was full of natural, homemade goods like candles, soap, laundry detergent, and perfumes. I found A Cup Full Cafe the first time I was here and stopped every time I was in Conway for an Iced Salted Caramel Latte. The Hop N Wich was a great place to stop for lunch. While we didn’t try any of their in house brewed beers, we did like the food here.

The Myrtle Beach Skywheel was something that I wanted to do while we were here. Mara and I had awesome views of the Atlantic Ocean and of Myrtle Beach. The pods on the skywheel were enclosed, so even though it was a cool day, we were warm and comfortable during our ride. A few photos from the skywheel and boardwalk area -

Huntington Beach State Park was another area we explored during Mara’s visit. If you enjoy bird watching, looking for alligators, exploring the beach, and walking through a historic home (which is not renovated), plan to spend some time at this park. All of the reviews I saw said that this was not a busy park. I think all of the visitors read the same reviews I did! While it wasn’t packed, it was busier than I thought it would be. It’s south of Myrtle Beach, and with traffic, it took us almost an hour to get here.

The Myrtle Beach area has a huge variety of restaurants and shopping areas. We explored several different places and, for the most part, we enjoyed all of the different places. Saltwater Scoops had some different, and good, ice cream flavors. Croissants Bistro and Bakery had really good breakfasts and baked goods. Crooked Hammock Brewery had good beer and food. LuLu’s here was just as good as the LuLu’s in Gulf Shores. Gordon Biersch, which we used to enjoy in Kansas City but hadn’t eaten at in years, was just as good as we remembered. The Grumpy Monk also had great food and a huge selection of beers.

The only restaurant that we didn’t have a good experience at (the food was good, the experience was not), was a local bar and restaurant near our campground. When we arrived, we didn’t see that there were two separate entrances for the bar and restaurant. We only noticed the bar entrance. Since there was a host stand right inside of the door, we stood there for a bit. Someone at a table nearby told us we can sit anywhere, so we picked an empty table, sat down and we were trying to figure out how getting a menu and ordering worked. As we looked around, we were figuring out that the restaurant was next door (and through the door that was behind our table). By this time, a small group had walked into the bar, looked at us strangely, then walked over and informed us that we were sitting at their table and we needed to move. As we didn’t see any reserved signs or anything indicating that the table was spoken for, we were a little confused! Thankfully we were getting up and moving next door anyway. We did try this place again, only this time we used their online ordering and picked up the food to go. I can’t say that experience was much better, only this time it was the staff that made me feel like it was an inconvenience to have to do a to-go order.

As for shopping, each shopping area had a different feel to it. Tanger Outlets at the intersections of Highways 22 & 17 had several stores that you always see at outlet malls, but it also had several that I hadn’t seen at any of their other locations before. Barefoot Landing had more touristy type stores. Coastal Grand Mall is a huge indoor mall that I didn’t explore too much, but seemed to have a variety of stores, things to do, and restaurants. We only ate at the Market Commons shopping area, as the stores were closing when we arrived, but it had more of an upscale feel to it with the type of stores that it had. It reminded me a lot of the Plaza area in Kansas City.

The weather while we were here was all over the place! It was rainy, they had record breaking high temps, and then a week later they had record breaking low temps. Thankfully no severe weather, so that was nice! We had hoped that the weather would be a little more mild than it was and were thinking that we had started our journey north way too soon. After talking to several people at the campground though, this Spring was very different than it usually is here. Many of the people that usually spend a few months here were also taken by surprise with the temps this Spring.

Spring also comes a lot earlier than I am used to here! By mid March, we had experienced layers, upon layers of pollen on everything. Everything was yellow - inside too since we had our door open frequently. Trees were budding. Flowers were blooming. Grass was trying to green up. Our seasonal allergies didn’t mind all of the pollen dust on everything, but once that stopped and everything started blooming, seasonal allergies were in full swing!

Since the weather was all over the place, I didn’t go to the beach as often as I thought I would. When I did go, I was amazed at the amount of birds here! There was an inlet area near the beach that I went to that was always filled with hundreds of birds. And the amount of people that drove their golf carts on the beach also amazed me - there was definitely a walking lane and a golf cart lane at the beach.

I’m glad we picked Myrtle Beach for our stay, but two months here might have been too long for us. We loved our time in Gulf Shores and we were hoping Myrtle Beach would be more like that. And while it was similar, it was also very different - Gulf Shores still has a small town feel to it, while Myrtle Beach feels more like a larger city. I love spending time in a city, but this was not the quiet, relaxing beach town I was expecting for an off season stay.