Food & Travel: Visiting the Isle Of Palms, South Carolina

Last month, my family and I took a small trip to the Isle Of Palms in South Carolina. This trip was very special to me because it was my very first time visiting the Isle Of Palms and my second time seeing the ocean. We had been planning this trip for months so William and I used this trip as our motivation to really push through work and school because it really seems to drag during the summer. On a side note, I definitely do not recommend working full time and taking hybrid classes.. but it was well worth it in the end!

It only took us about 3 hours to get to Isle Of Palms from Greenville, South Carolina. Although we took separate cars, we both arrived almost at the same time as each other. William, his parents, and I stayed at The Palms Oceanfront Hotel. This hotel was so beautiful and a great location. It was right across from several shops and restaurants within walking distance. Once we were on the ground level of the hotel, the ocean was steps away. There was also a pool on the second floor and continental breakfast every morning. What I loved the most about this hotel was the service; I had spoken with management about bringing our cat, Pumpkin with us. At first, they arranged it for a fee, but once we arrived they were so nice and waived the fee. Pumpkin was so good in our room. Believe it or not, she loves hotel rooms and exploring new spaces. When we brought her out on the beach, she was very sweet and a few kids came up to pet her. We couldn’t get a good photo of her looking towards us because she was so fascinated by the birds and the ocean.

After getting settled into the hotel, we went straight to the beach. It was so beautiful. We got ice cream and burgers at a nice little place next to our hotel, Island Joes Espresso & Ice Cream. Although Island Joes seemed to be very popular for their ice cream, they have some great hamburgers, too! We stayed at the beach until dark and then went swimming in the pool on the second floor. William and his father were craving oysters, so we all decided to go to an oyster bar for dinner. There weren’t many oyster bars in the area, so we ventured out to Downtown Charleston for dinner at a seafood and raw oyster bar called the Oyster House & O-Bar. The atmosphere seemed very casual but with the friendly staff and the music, it had a very laid back and “beachy” vibe. Although I don’t care for oysters, I was surprised to see the variety of oysters on the menu as I didn’t even know that many existed. And I loved watching the bartenders prepare the raws and drinks from our seats.

I had the Seafood Pasta and She Crab Soup and they were both great and very flavorful! She crab soup is my favorite, and this she crab had a thick consistency with plenty of lump crab meat inside. The Seafood Pasta had shrimp, clams, crab meat, mussels, and lobster meat on a bed of linguine with a garlic white wine sauce. William ordered the Bouillabaisse, which had shrimp, cod, and clams in a broth of saffron herbs, fennel, and rosemary. I wish I would have taken a photo of his entrée because this place obviously took pride in presentation and it looked so yummy, too. I had some of his shrimp and some of his broth, which tasted great. It was almost like a seafood stew.

The next day, we headed out to the beach pretty early; it was super cloudy so we wanted to make the most out of the day before it rained. As it got darker, we packed our things and went to Island Joes for lunch. Luckily, it didn’t start to rain until we got back to our hotel room. It was really cool to watch the rain from our balcony, and we even saw people riding out the storm on the beach. When the sun came back out, William and I went back out to the beach for a while. It was very beautiful and, oddly enough, there were a lot of nice seashells that washed up after the storm that I was able to collect. After, we hung out at the hotel for a while, then we all decided to get some crab for dinner. We were all pretty tired so we decided to bring it back to our rooms and eat it together instead of going out. We all decided on Reds Ice House, which was a little bit of a drive out to downtown Mount Pleasant, but it was well worth it. We all honestly went all out on menu items and shared a bit of everything. Again, I had some of the she crab soup, which was amazing. Usually, I don’t really care too much for spicy food, but this she crab was spicy and it was actually really delicious. It also came in a bread bowl which was pretty cool to dip everything in. We also had a couple buckets of the snow crab clusters and Carolina peel ‘n’ eats, some fish & chips, coconut shrimp, and a few of the Red’s crazy crab cakes. Jalapeño hushpuppies came as a side item with almost all of the entrees and they were amazing.

The next day was our last day at the beach. We had to check out of the hotel around noon, so we got everything packed in our car and we decided to go out on the beach one last time with Pumpkin. As I mentioned earlier in this post, she was so distracted by the birds and water, we just couldn’t get a good photo! But, we were very surprised that she wasn’t squeamish; she seemed to enjoy it and she was rather relaxed. We didn’t keep her out there long because of her harness, leash, and fur. On our way back up, there were some children that asked to pet her which was too cute. As we were leaving, we went to some of the shops across from our hotel and got some souvenirs to take back with us. Although this trip was rather short, it was very much needed for all of us, and we are already planning to go back soon!