One thing that Eric and I have made a priority every year for countless years is to set aside a week long beach vacation with our children. We have become beach hoppers moving from beach to beach each year, searching for the perfect place. While we have loved each place we’ve stayed, we’ve liked traveling to new places to experience different things. This year we decided on Folly Beach in Charleston. We loved every, single thing about our trip. From the accommodations to the food, it was one of our best vacations to date! Did I mention the food? I would have loved to have blogged about that in itself but never was able to be patient enough to take photos of the food before digging in. But don’t worry, I’ll include a list of our favorite places and dishes at the end of this post anyway 🙂

On this trip, we piled into our van and headed down to Fayetteville the day before checking in to break up the trip a little. We have a lot of kids and our oldest brought a friend as well, so it was nice being able to take our time getting there! After our short stay in Fayetteville, we headed on down to low country!

One of the places we loved the most on our trip was downtown Charleston. The history and the architecture were breathtaking while the kids loved the fountains! Oh, and the food!!!!! We walked by historic Rainbow Row, strolled down the cobblestone streets, and made our way to Waterfront Park so the kids could cool off a bit in the fountains. Of course we stopped for a few photos before diving into the water.

This is actually what happens when trying to get one good shot of these crazies!

While in Charleston, we made a point to stop by Eric’s father’s grave. This was one of the most important parts of our trip, particularly for our children because they never had the opportunity to meet Eric’s father (and neither did I). Eric took a moment to have a beer with his father and to have a chat. While beautiful and also heartbreaking, I’m so glad we were all able to be there for him as I know this was a hard thing for him to do. And I’m so glad that we were able to have this experience as a family. We shared stories of his father, his father’s mother and brother that he is buried beside, and left with a deeper appreciation for each other and the love we have.

In between our quick trips to Charleston, we stayed on the beach almost the entire time during the day, came in for breaks in the evening, and headed out on our short walks through Folly Beach to hear the live music, walk on the pier, and grab the occasional bite to eat. It was so great being so close to everything. We were even able to do a paddle boarding lesson with Charleston Paddle Board Company and walk home from the boat dock where we met for our lesson. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to bring cameras to take photos but you can view their page here Charleston Paddle Board Co.

The day we left, I woke the kids up at 5:30 in the morning to do sunrise photos. It was a great way to say our last farewell to this lovely little gem of a place and get moving for the long drive home.

Here were some of our favorite eats while in Charleston:

Hominy Grill Charleston ~ The Big Nasty and Shrimp & Grits
Carmella’s Dessert Bar ~ Coconut Cake with Raspberry Filling and Peanut Butter Cup Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie
Lost Dog Cafe in Folly Beach ~ Shrimp Po Boy and Southern Style BLT
Roadside Seafood Folly Beach ~ Bam Bam Shrimp Tacos
Woody’s Pizza Folly Beach ~ Any Pizza Choice