Visiting Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach is one of the most popular beach destinations on the East Coast, and it’s a place I visited more times than I can remember growing up. When I returned more than fifteen years later as an adult, though, the atmosphere seemed completely different from what I remembered as a kid.

I remembered places like the area photographed above, with restaurants, IMAX movies, shops, and more golf courses than you could imagine. I also remembered the boardwalks built around ponds filled with huge catfish and the occasional alligator. Fish-food dispensers made it easy to throw a handful into the water and instantly start a feeding frenzy.

The Quirky Side of Myrtle Beach

Another thing I remembered was the endless collection of quirky museums, attractions and street performers. This guy was outside Ripley’s Believe It or Not, which is exactly the kind of place that seems to fit naturally into Myrtle Beach. The museum is filled with strange exhibits, unusual records and oddities from around the world.

Myrtle Beach also had a wild collection of souvenir shops selling just about anything you could imagine. I remember visiting when I was around fifteen and being amazed by some of the things available in stores. Shops filled with swords, knives and other unusual merchandise were just another part of the atmosphere I remembered from my childhood visits.

Returning years later, the stores had changed but the anything-goes feeling hadn’t completely disappeared. Some of what I saw was definitely different from the Myrtle Beach I remembered growing up.

Myrtle Beach at Night

What I didn’t remember nearly as much were all the dive bars, tattoo shops and nightlife. Maybe I simply never noticed any of it when I visited as a kid, but returning as an adult gave me a completely different impression of the city.

That’s also part of what makes Myrtle Beach unusual. One section can feel like a family vacation destination filled with miniature golf courses, restaurants and amusement attractions, while another can have a completely different atmosphere after dark.

Somehow, despite visiting one of the most famous beach destinations in the country, I failed to take a single decent photograph of the actual beach on this trip. Myrtle Beach has miles of coastline along with everything from busy beachfront developments to large resorts, so next time I’ll have to do a much better job showing the part of the city that actually gave it its name!