Start from 28 curated places around Isle of Palms, SC, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Acme Lowcountry Kitchen
The island's most beloved morning-to-evening spot, Acme anchors a block of JC Long Boulevard with shrimp and grits that will ruin you for all lesser versions. Lowcountry staples — crab cake benedicts, she-crab soup, grouper tacos — arrive with local ingredients and a relaxed beach-town ease. Regulars come back every trip, sometimes twice a day.
Sea Biscuit Cafe
A cash-only breakfast counter that has been feeding islanders since the 1980s with no-pretense cooking and portions built for people who actually swim. Homemade biscuits, omelets stuffed with local vegetables, and the kind of consistent quality that earns a three-decade following. There is usually a line and it is worth every minute of it.
Trails & outdoors
Isle of Palms Beach Walk
Seven miles of Atlantic beach from Breach Inlet to the Wild Dunes Resort boundary, with 57 public access points and no motorized vehicles allowed on the sand. The stretch north of the county park gets progressively quieter and wilder the further you walk, passing shorebird nesting areas and ending near maritime forest at the island's far tip. Low tide reveals a wide, firm strand that makes long walks easy.
Palmetto Trail – Awendaw Passage
The most accessible entry point to the state's long-distance Palmetto Trail from the IOP area, starting in Awendaw about 30 minutes north and offering a flat, easy seven-mile section through Francis Marion National Forest longleaf pine savannas and tidal creeks before ending at the Intracoastal Waterway. The birding is exceptional — warblers, woodpeckers, and wading birds throughout.
Things to do
The Windjammer Live Music
The outdoor concert stage at the Windjammer hosts national touring acts and regional favorites on a schedule that runs from March through October, covering everything from classic rock covers to country, reggae, and beach music. With capacity for over 1,000 and an outdoor stage facing the ocean, this is one of the better small concert venues on the East Coast.
Barrier Island Eco Tours
The best guided water experience in the area, running naturalist-led kayak tours from IOP Marina through tidal creeks, salt marshes, and out to Capers Island — one of the last undisturbed barrier islands on the coast. The guides are biologists who double as good storytellers, and the trips are genuinely educational without being classroom-dull.
Landmarks & sights
Isle of Palms County Park
The best-maintained public beach access on the island, with boardwalks, volleyball courts, restrooms, and a concession stand — everything that makes a beach day easy without sacrificing the natural character of the strand. Seven miles of Atlantic shoreline run the length of IOP; this park is the polished front door to all of it.
Wild Dunes Resort & Links Course
Tom Fazio's oceanfront 18-hole Links Course sits at the north end of the island inside the Wild Dunes Resort, with the Atlantic visible from most fairways and a level of conditioning that has ranked it among South Carolina's best public-access courses for thirty years. Even non-golfers come for the stretch of beach on the resort's northern tip, which stays uncrowded.