Welcome to Stop #3 on the Beaver Family Winter Break 2022 State Park Extravaganza. 🙂 Links to previous two stops here and here.
Ahh…the Dirty Myrt’. I’m from SC, and I’ve been to Myrtle Beach plenty of times, though hardly ever for vacation. Mostly, it would be for conventions, retreats, class trips, and the like. I think it’s a given rule that Myrtle Beach is where out-of-staters go to vacation. We in SC might tend to go elsewhere. (You know, somewhere where the nickname doesn’t have the name ‘Dirty’ in it.)
But I realized when we went to the state park that perhaps I haven’t been totally fair to Myrtle Beach. Sure, it’s got it’s strip of surf shops and cheesy restaurants with live mermaids. Likewise, Gatlinburg (perhaps the Southeast’s mountain equivalent to Myrtle Beach) has its own similar character, but that doesn’t mean that the Tennessee mountains are bad.
Myrtle Beach SP, established in the 1930s by the CCC, is an area of mostly undeveloped land by the coast. The forests there mean that it is a landscape not found anywhere else in Myrtle Beach. There’s no condos, hotels, restaurants, etc. You walk through the forest and it opens up to the beach. That’s my kind of landscape, so I could feel my opinion towards the place changing.
There is a pier there, where the girls got to get up close and personal with a pelican. We also saw a couple of dolphins. And did I mention the water? Much like at Huntington Beach the previous day, the water was a blue color like I’ve never seen before. (As normally the water is, you know, ‘dirty’.) Who knows why it was that color, but regardless, it helped me appreciate the landscape that much more.
We enjoyed a bit of time on the beach, the girls getting wet in the way-too-cold water but having a blast regardless.
New rule: It’s okay to go to Myrtle Beach…just go to the state park! 🙂 And maybe, just maybe, I’ll stop referring to this place as the Dirty Myrt’. (Ok, maybe that’s taking it a step too far…but I will at least recognize that there are beautiful places in MB.)
What opinions do you have about Myrtle Beach? Which beach do you visit?
One more stop on our Pee Dee/Grand Strand tour. Click here for more!
Beavers in the Park 
Hello Beavers! I’m so impressed with your blog with its witty title and interesting travel info. Of course, knowing you personally, Benjamin, it brings a touch of joy to be able to follow along with you and your family’s journey across SC. Plus, it gives me ideas on places Tim and I can visit.
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Glad you’re enjoying it! I’m realizing that, while I always have appreciated SC, it has a lot more to offer than I ever imagined! 🙂
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