Pawleys Island makes list of Top 10 Best Beaches on the East Coast

From Maine to Florida, Condé Nast Traveler went in search for the “10 Best Beach Towns” and, not surprisingly, found Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

In the article for the venerable travel magazine, Alex Erdekian writes, “The 14 states that make up the East Coast of the U.S. offer up a wide range of climates, geographies and cultures. They include Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida—and all have beautiful, special beach towns worth a visit this summer.”

Erdekian begins his Top 10 list in Bar Harbor, Maine, and moves his way down the East Coast. Four of the beach towns making the list are in the South — one each in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

For Pawleys Island, Erdekian noted that it’s “so small that its year-round population hovers around 100 people.”

To make the list, he was captivated by Pawleys’ pristine beach and laidback vibe, but he was equally entranced by its history and lore.

“It was first settled in the 1500s, making it one of the oldest beach towns in the U.S.,” Erdekian wrote about Pawleys, accompanied by a stunning photo of the marsh at sunset. “With that amount of history, there is, of course, a ghost story to go with it: There have been sightings of the Gray Man, a ghost whose appearance is said to warn of hurricanes as he paces up and down the beach, dating to a 19th-century storm. Summer options on Pawleys Island that are not at all spooky—besides flopping around on the beach—include golf, fishing, walking sculpture-filled gardens, and feasting on Lowcountry Cuisine like She Crab soup.”

While he doesn’t go into details, the writer is clearly also referring to the many mainland amenities enjoyed by vacationers and residents alike. There’s the nine golf courses that can be found on mainland Pawleys, for example, and the sculpture-filled gardens clearly is in reference to Brookgreen Gardens in nearby Murrells Inlet.

In addition to Pawleys Island, the other nine beach towns to make the list include Bar Harbor, Maine; Rockport Massachusetts; Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; Montauk, New York; Cape May, New Jersey; Chincoteague, Virginia; Nags Heads, North Carolina; and Siesta Key, Florida.