Make a day of it
A Grand Strand day and night
How to build a Grand Strand day around the luau: a salt-marsh eco tour at Murrells Inlet, the beach and the SkyWheel, and the Polynesian show to finish.
Book a table at the luau ↗Quick answer
Start with the water and end with the fire. Spend the morning on a two-hour salt-marsh eco tour at Murrells Inlet with a marine biologist, the afternoon on the beach or the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk, and the evening at the Polynesian dinner luau. The Grand Strand is a long arc of beach running for more than 60 miles from Little River to Winyah Bay, so plan the driving as carefully as the bookings.
The Grand Strand in brief
The Grand Strand is the arc of Atlantic beach in Horry and Georgetown counties, South Carolina, running for more than 60 miles from Little River to Winyah Bay. The name dates back to newspaper columns of 1949. Myrtle Beach sits at its centre and draws more than 20 million visitors a year with its beaches, golf courses, restaurants, dinner theatres and shows. That scale means choice, but also traffic: group your plans by area and you will spend more of the day outside and less of it at traffic lights.
Morning: the salt marsh at Murrells Inlet
Murrells Inlet lies about 13 miles south of Myrtle Beach. Once mainly a fishing village, it is now known for the MarshWalk, a half-mile boardwalk above the salt marsh. A two-hour eco tour that books through GetYourGuide takes you into the marsh by boat with a marine biologist: live touch tanks, a sample dredged from the creek bed, blue crabs, birdwatching, and a stop on a beach to look for shells. It sails through light rain, and you are asked to arrive 30 minutes early.
Afternoon: beach, Boardwalk and SkyWheel
Head back north for the afternoon. The Myrtle Beach Boardwalk opened in 2010 and has been ranked among the best boardwalks in the United States; the SkyWheel beside it, opened in May 2011, is a 200-foot observation wheel with glass gondolas facing the Atlantic. Myrtle Beach State Park, established in 1935, has just under a mile of beach for swimming and fishing. Keep an hour in hand at the end of the afternoon to shower, change and dig out a jacket.
Evening: the luau
Finish at the Polynesian dinner luau. A Samoan family from Tutuila stages two hours of live music, hula, Samoan siva and fire knives over a buffet dinner in an air-conditioned room at a Myrtle Beach inn, with water, tea, lemonade and parking included. After a day of sun and salt water, an indoor evening where dinner is sorted and the children are entertained is the easy end the day needs. Bring cash for the bar and the photos, and a light layer for the cool room.
Read next: Myrtle Beach luau: worth it?
Other evenings on the Strand
If you are staying a week, spread your evenings out. A paddle-wheel dinner cruise on the Intracoastal Waterway leaves from North Myrtle Beach and gives you two hours on the water with dinner and live music, though that ticket cannot be refunded. For a much bigger production, Myrtle Beach's large dinner theatres include a pirate-themed arena show with acrobatics, high dives and animals around an indoor lagoon. The luau is the smallest and most personal of the three.
Read next: Luau or dinner cruise: which?
Planning tips
Book the timed activities first and build the rest around them: the eco tour and the luau each have a set start time, shown on your confirmations. Both refund you in full if plans change, the marsh tour when cancelled two days ahead and the luau one day ahead, so keep an eye on the forecast. Pack sun cream and a hat for the boat, shoes you can get wet on the beach, and cash and a jacket for the evening.
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