We visited Edisto Beach in November 2024 as part of our two-week Carolinas in November trip.

From Georgetown, we drove a couple hours south to Edisto Beach, chosen for its old-school beach town feel, its scenic state park campground, and the dog-friendly beach itself. Our savvy Atlanta cousin gave us an important tip when we told him our trip route in Raleigh: stress the first syllable in Edisto!

We broke up the drive with a hike on the Palmetto Trail, which I mentioned in our Georgetown post as it’s closer to that town than to Edisto, and a stop at a Whole Foods on the outskirts of Charleston, which I do not recommend trying with a big trailer.

Edisto Beach is a strip along the bottom of Edisto Island, an area rich with history, from the indigenous Edisto Indians, to the British rice and cotton farmers, to Civil War-era settlements for escaped slaves and Union staging grounds. The Gullah culture came to Edisto Island when West Africans, experts in rice production, were forced into slavery on rice plantations. When the Civil War began, the Confederacy evacuated the white plantation owners, many of whom left enslaved people behind. Due to the remoteness of Edisto Island, the Gullah language and traditions were protected from outside influence and still thrive today.

After the Civil War, many African Americans on Edisto Island pooled their money to buy the plantations and subdivide them into farms. There’s too much history for me to do a decent job of summarizing here; I highly recommend reading this history of the Hutchinson family from the Edisto Island Open Land Trust if you’d like to know more about the fascinating past of this area.

Campground

We keep a wish list map and throw ideas at it when we read or hear a compelling description of a destination. I can’t tell you where the Edisto Beach State Park dot on our map came from, but it’s been there for a while and we were thrilled to finally check it out. It totally lived up to expectation.

The state park is broken into two separate sections: Live Oak, by the salt marsh, and Beach, near the (can you guess) ocean. The hiking trails are in the larger Live Oak section; we chose to be near the ocean with our beach-loving dog. The Beach campground has a well-stocked camp store, and next door is a little wi-fi room with several rows of tables–otherwise there’s no wi-fi in the park.

The camp store sells all sorts of fun camping memorabilia and accessories, including firewood. Our campsite, Beach #2, was shady and private, and an easy walk to the beach, the camp store, the tiniest Food Lion you ever saw, and to the closest bar, Coot’s. More on that later. The sites farther into the campground did seem nicer, but ours was lovely–although exiting our loop of the campground with our 28″ trailer was super hairy, so if you’re bigger than that, check the campground map to make sure the access is doable for you.

Eating and drinking

Edisto Beach does not seem to be a dining destination. Our best recommendation is to buy fresh seafood from Edisto Seafood Market and cook it up at your campsite, which we very much enjoyed doing.

Businesses at Edisto Beach are more or less split between the eastern and western ends of the beach. The state park is to the east, and the west side has a big Wyndham resort, marinas, and a golf course. About three mostly-residential miles separate the two sections.

Near home, we had a yummy breakfast of avocado toast and lattes and wifi at Marsh Moon Cafe, which at the time of writing doesn’t appear on Google maps–we learned about it in Edisto News. It’s a cozy coffee shop with healthy food options just a minute down Jungle Road from the state park. Tortuga’s Mexican Grill next door was doing a bustling breakfast business too–we had noted their breakfast burritos in our pre-trip research.

Coot’s Bar and Grill was our neighborhood oceanfront dive bar, basically at the entrance of the state park. We loved it for the views from the deck and the proximity to home.

Two other restaurants close to the campground that we were interested in pre-trip were The Waterfront Restaurant and SeaCow Eatery. SeaCow looks cute and will stay on our radar for next visit, but we didn’t find The Waterfront compelling–and fyi, it’s not actually on the water.

The other island bar patronized was Whaley’s, a few miles away on the western end of the island. It’s a long-time local seafood dive bar in an old gas station, and we enjoyed looking at the old photos on the walls and then sipping our drinks at a picnic table out front.

Near Whaley’s, also on the western end of the beach, are Pressley’s at the Marina, a seafood restaurant with a deck over the marina, only open Thurs-Mon in the off-season; and Dockside, a cool-looking outdoor bar built out over the marsh, only open late night on the weekends in the off-season. The restaurant upstairs from Dockside, High Tides, was open when we stopped by, but they don’t have any outdoor space, so we left to enjoy the pretty evening elsewhere.

One last food note: reader Deb recommended a stop for lunch at the patio at Roxbury Mercantile on the way to Edisto for great seafood. Thanks, Deb!! They’re closed on Mondays, when we came through from Georgetown, and we didn’t have time to stop on the way out because we had to get J to the airport in Charleston. Next time for sure!

Exploring

The most fun thing to do in Edisto Beach (other than hanging out at your sweet campsite in the state park, which is what we mostly did) is walk on the beach! Our campsite was close to a short path through the woods to the state park beach, where leashed dogs are allowed year-round. The town’s beach, outside the state park, allows off-leash dogs from November 1 to April 30. You can find a foot (and dog) washing station near the camp store, an important amenity at a beachy campground!

Lots of people were tootling around town on bikes. We didn’t bring ours, but you should! We did head out for a run through town one morning, and with the grid layout of roads it’s easy to make a loop of whatever length you’d like.

We’d like to return to Edisto Beach for the peaceful campground and laid-back vibe! From here, our original plan had us continuing south, but when a work meeting came up for J in NYC, we zigged back north to add a night in Charleston. It was a whirlwind 30 hours for all three of us; J was run ragged, but Bugsy and I had a lovely time in Charleston!