Welcome to the Lowcountry!

“101 Things to Do” is a free visitor magazine published twice a year.

Explore our 101 articles to get an insider’s look at things to do and places to go on Hilton Head Island, SC, as well as the mysterious Daufuskie Island and three of the country’s favorite historic cities: Beaufort, SC, Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA.

This magazine is designed to not only give you ideas of how to spend your time, but to give you an appreciation for our land and our people.

Our neck of the woods is commonly called the Lowcountry, a geographic area that stretches along coastal South Carolina and Georgia. It calls to mind miles of beaches, endless salt marshes, cotton and rice plantations canopied by old towering oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, a countless variety of wildlife, and the other-worldly hues and scents of a rustling Southern seashore.



By the Numbers

• There are almost 40,000 of us who live on Hilton Head year-around and there are plenty of reasons for that, as we hope you will soon find out.

• The Island is 42 square miles – 12 miles long and five miles wide.

• We are the second largest barrier island on the East Coast of the United States (Long Island, New York being the largest).

• The Island is comprised of about 28,000 acres of dry land and about 2,000 acres of wetlands.

• We have 12 miles of wide white sand beaches, over 50 miles of bike and leisure trails, 23 golf courses on-island (another 22 near-by), and more than 300 tennis courts.

• We gratefully receive around 2.5 million visitors a year

• We have well over 200 restaurants and hundreds of stores, not to mention thousands of beds on which to lay your exhausted heads!

• We are about 45 minutes north of Savannah, Georgia, about 50 minutes south of Beaufort, South Carolina, and about 2 hours south of Charleston, South Carolina.

These numbers, however, don’t even begin to give you a flavor for our real home. To understand Hilton Head Island and the Lowcountry, you need to understand our history, the migration and character of our people, our bountiful wildlife, and the economic forces that drive our development.

As you read through our 101 articles, you will learn the origin of our name; about how the Revolutionary and Civil Wars affected this island; about the influence of the Gullah culture; and how a bridge and one man dramatically turned an isolated sea island into a world-famous destination resort.

We hope this will aid you in finding a company that has that special “thing to do” for your visit to the Lowcountry. (And when you call or visit our advertisers, please don’t forget to mention that you read about them or saw their ad in “101”!)

And our maps, ­ lots of maps!  Hilton Head, Bluffton, Beaufort, Savannah.

One last thing:  Please contact our editor (843-682-3205) if you find any inaccuracies or have any suggestions.

So, sit back and read.  Then get up and enjoy!