Surfside Beach
Surfside Beach, SC
Surfside Beach calls itself the Family Beach on the Grand Strand, a smaller, quieter town squeezed between Myrtle Beach and Garden City with a dozen access points and a lot fewer high-rises. It's the kind of place where the pace slows down noticeably once you cross the town line.
A genuinely calmer, more residential stretch of the Grand Strand than its bigger neighbors, though there's less to do after dark than Myrtle Beach a few miles north.
How we score beachesFree street parking along Ocean Boulevard fills first, so the paid lots a block or two back are usually the faster bet by mid morning.
Free street parking runs along Ocean Boulevard and near most accesses. Premium lots run $3 an hour or $15 a day, non-premium lots $2 an hour or $10 a day.
Public accesses are mostly boardwalk crossings over a low dune, flat enough for a stroller once past the ramp.
Dogs are banned from the public beach between 10am and 5pm from May 1 through Labor Day. Leashed dogs are welcome outside those hours, and anytime the rest of the year.
Water warms into the low 80s by August, alongside the same hurricane season, June through November, that runs the length of the Grand Strand. The town earns its family reputation partly by staying calmer than Myrtle Beach even at the height of summer.
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