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Charleston

Rainbow Row, Fort Sumter and Lowcountry Cooking

Plan this trip
2 daysIdeal stay₹16,170From / night₹4,760Food / day₹3,330Entry

South Carolina's port city, founded in 1670: the pastel houses of Rainbow Row, the Battery's mansions and Waterfront Park, cobbled lanes and church steeples, and the ferry to Fort Sumter, where the Civil War's first shots were fired in 1861. Charleston was the busiest slave port in North America, a history told at the International African American Museum on Gadsden's Wharf and in the slave dwellings kept at the plantations outside town (Middleton Place, Magnolia, McLeod, Boone Hall). Shrimp and grits, she-crab soup and Gullah cooking, Folly Beach and the Angel Oak fill the rest. Spring is the loveliest season; summers are hot and humid, and the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to November. Savannah is two hours south by car or by the Amtrak Palmetto.

Highlights

  • Rainbow Row and the Battery
  • Fort Sumter by ferry
  • International African American Museum
  • Middleton Place or Magnolia's gardens
  • Shrimp and grits and Lowcountry cooking
  • Angel Oak
  • Folly Beach

Things to do

  • Historic district walk: Rainbow Row, the Battery and Waterfront ParkMorning · 3h
  • Fort Sumter by ferryAfternoon · 2h 30m
  • International African American MuseumAfternoon · 2h 30m
  • Middleton Place: gardens, stableyards and Eliza's HouseMorning · 3h 30m
  • Angel Oak and Folly BeachAfternoon · 3h 30m
  • Charleston City Market and King StreetAfternoon · 2h
  • Lowcountry dinner: shrimp and gritsEvening · 2h
  • Evening history walk through the old cityEvening · 1h 30m

Tours & tickets

Tours & tickets in Charlestonvia GetYourGuideTours & tickets in Charlestonvia Klook

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When to go

Best time: March – May, October – November

Worth knowing

Peak Hurricane Season

⚠️ Mid-August to mid-October is the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. A storm can close airports, cancel flights and, in the Keys and on the Gulf coast, bring evacuation orders. Buy refundable bookings and travel insurance that covers hurricanes, follow the National Hurricane Center (nhc.noaa.gov) in the days before, and leave when officials say so.

Heads up

Hurricane Season

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November; storms are less likely at its ends than in August to October, but afternoon thunderstorms are near daily in summer. Watch the National Hurricane Center's outlook before you travel.

  • Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston — Seventeen days of opera, theatre, dance and music in Charleston's theatres, churches and gardens from late May into early June; hotels fill and rates rise.