We were a little anxious to travel in the midst of a global pandemic (and we still kind of are). But we wanted to share a little about our experience road tripping to Charleston, South Carolina. 

This was our first non-local road trip since the pandemic and it was definitely an experience. We of course had our masks and sanitizer on hand, but it was such a different reality.

There were times we would forget we had to wear masks when entering the hotel or when leaving the hotel room. 

Fortunately, the majority of people in Charleston wore masks and kept their distance, but there were times when the streets were overcrowded. 

We were still able to do everything we hoped — eat delicious food, go shopping and sightseeing. For the most part, we felt safe during our time there.

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Here is our itinerary for our trip.

Day 1

Because we had a 3-day weekend, we were able to pull off this 8-10 hour road trip. It was a lot of driving but we’ve never been to Charleston before and we were going with our friends Ish and Kulsoom so we figured it wouldn’t be too bad, and luckily it wasn’t. 

We drove through the night on Friday and arrived around 5 a.m. on Saturday. We slept for a bit and then headed downtown for brunch around noon. We had breakfast at Big Bad Breakfast. It had a modern southern diner feel and we all really enjoyed what we ordered.

After brunch we headed to King St. for some shopping. We of course had to visit the Yeti store there. Begad bought the 24 oz version of this copper mug. There are all kinds of stores there, some that are local to Charleston and others that are well-known chains like West Elm and H&M. There were some high-end designer stores as well.

After shopping, we grabbed some iced lattes from a coffee shop called Bitty & Beau’s Coffee. It was such a fun and unique experience. The shop is run by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the customer service was immaculate. The baristas give you a playing card for your order. We kept ours as a souvenir.

Next, we drove around the city and checked out the waterfront. Before heading back to the hotel to rest, we stopped by the Tanger outlets. The outlet design reflects the historic architecture that you find in downtown charleston (think Rainbow Row). It was definitely one of the more beautiful outlets we have been to.

Once we rested, we went back downtown for some dinner. We found a place called Fuel, which was featured on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It was a caribbean inspired restaurant. It definitely had a nice vibe. The Nachos were amazing, but our entrees were just okay.

For dessert, we went to an ice cream shop called Off-Track. They have traditional ice cream flavors as well as unique vegan flavors. We took our ice cream to the waterfront park and hung out there for a bit.

On our way back to the hotel we stumbled across this candy shop called Candy Kitchen and we couldn’t help ourselves.

Day 2

On Sunday, we had a difficult time finding a brunch spot that could seat us. We walked through downtown Charleston to find something with a short wait time, but didn’t have any luck. We settled on a grab & go breakfast from The Daily. The iced honey lavender latte from there was delicious but the food we had was okay.

We did some more driving around and walking. We drove by Rainbow Row and looked at the nice, big houses facing the riverfront.

Later in the day we stopped by Second State Coffee for a quick pick-me-up. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to rest and freshen up for dinner.

For dinner, we decided to head to a different part of town. First, we crossed over the bridge to Sullivan’s Island where we stopped to catch a glimpse of the beach and take some pictures. We didn’t stay there long since we had a reservation for dinner, but if we had more time in Charleston, we would have definitely spent more time at the beach. We had dinner at The Mill Street Tavern in Mount Pleasant and we all agreed that it was the best food place we’ve been to in Charleston.

We had dessert at Carmella’s. All their cakes looked delicious, but we were still kind of full from dinner so we all shared one cannoli cake. It was REALLY good!

Day 3

We wanted to hit the road early Monday morning so our plan was to first go to Sugar Bakeshop and pick up some treats, but they were closed (it was Labor Day). So we headed straight to King St. to get some breakfast biscuits from Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit. The biscuits were so warm and yummy. Our favorite flavors were the cinnamon, cheese & chive and shortcake.

And that concludes our trip to Charleston. Overall, we would recommend it for a weekend trip. We didn’t really find that much to do there, so if we would have spent more time there we probably would’ve run out of things to do. If you haven’t been, it’s a cute little Southern city worth visiting at least once.