We have decided to take a three week trip to Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina this summer, end of June beginning of July. I have planned 4 nights in Savannah and 4 nights in Charleston. From these I want to visit Hilton Head, Beaufort, Tyree, Jekyll, etc. I had planned 2 nights in Myrtle Beach. After reading mesages I am sure that it is worth it. In SoCal we have beaches and traffic. My question is whether I should add another day in each of the two cities above and then do more day trips or do I have enough time scheduled. I also have 4 nights for the Asheville area. I could use the days to see sights on the way there.

You do NOT need 4 nites in Savannah-- 3 will be fine...

4 in Charleston is good..( but remember the humidty in CHARLESTON in July/AUG is horrendous..Best time to visit is April/May..

3 nites in Hilton Head...super nice there....beachy and tennis and golf and good food.

Beaufort ( not worth staying overnite)

3nites in Myrtle Beach-- LOTS of traffic but still fun-esp if you have kids OR play golf...

4 nites in Asheville ( use this as a base and drive into the surrounding little towns....

3nites in Blowing Rock ( also in the Mts..near to Charlotte) --neat little downtown with great shops and auctions..Lots of people from Palm Beach etc have summer houses here and there is tons to do !

Now, before you go heading out to see the nearby towns around Asheville, you ought to see what's in Asheville! Here's what to see while you're in town...

1. Biltmore Estate -- largest private home in America; a 255-room palace filled with priceless art and antiques, on 8,000 acres of parkland and gardens laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed New York's Central Park.

2. Biltmore Village -- a small Tudor-style district of shops and retaurants at the gates of Biltmore Estate, built to house the laborers and artisans who worked at the estate. Centered around the Cathedral of All Souls, which is built in the shape of a celtic cross and featuring stained glass windows crafted using the archaic techniques of the oldest cathedrals of Europe.

3. Blue Ridge Parkway -- America's "most scenic drive," winds through town with a stop at the Folk Art Center, where museum-quality handicrafts such as quilts, furniture, jewelry and more are displayed in a small permanent collection, with much for sale as well. Further along to the east are Craggy Gardens, a spectacular natural rhododendron garden, and Mt. Mitchell, highest mountain in the eastern US.

4. Asheville Botanical Gardens -- features various themed gardens, including a sensory garden for the blind and a garden of plants that attract birds.

5. Downtown Asheville -- a more-than-60-block district where most of the architecture from Asheville's largest boom period (1890-1930) still stands, including a Neo-Gothic shopping arcade that fills an entire block, an Art Deco Baptist church modelled on the Florentine Duomo, two of the most significant Art Deco buildings -- the Asheville City Building (city hall), and the S&W Cafeteria -- in America, and other gorgeous buildings of all types and eras. Downtown Asheville boasts the second largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the Southeastern US, surpassed only by Miami Beach, FL.

6. Estes-Winn Memorial Automobile Museum -- antique cars, including a fire engine from the 1920's are displayed here, next door the North Carolina Homespun Museum, where you can learn about the region's textile industry heritage.

7. Grove Park Inn -- another example of Asheville's amazing architecture, built from boulders, with sparkling geodes set into the lobby walls, with a red tile roof that looks as though it was "poured on." A favorite of visitors during Asheville's years as one of the country's most fashionable resorts in the 1920's. F. Scott Fitzgerald liked to stay here. In recent years, the inn has built a world-class spa.

8. Montford -- one of many significant historic neighborhoods in Asheville, northwest of downtown. Home to Riverside Cemetery, a beautiful Victorian cemetery where famous Ashevillians such as Thomas Wolfe and O. Henry rest.

9. North Carolina Arboretum -- originally planned by Frederick Law Olmstead, but only recently built and completed. It's especially proud of its Quilt Garden, where plants and flowers are arranged to form traditional Appalachian quilt patters, and of its exemplary bonsai garden.

10. Pack Place -- a museum complex in downtown Asheville, home to the Asheville Art Museum, the Colburn Gem and Mineral Museum, the YMI Cultural Center, and the Health Adventure. A painting by Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott, hangs in the art museum, while the Colburn has been described as a "mini-Smithsonian" or gems. The YMI center is a museum of African-American art and history, while the Health Adventure is a children's health museum that includes among its collections a pair of Shaquille O'Neal's shoes.

11. Smith-McDowell House Museum -- the oldest structure still standing in Asheville was the home of a wealthy antebellum family, where the history of the area from the 1840's through the time of the American Civil War and beyond is now on display.

12. Thomas Wolfe Memorial -- the home that served as inspiration for this early 20th Century American writer is preserved a museum. His mother ran a boarding house here, which he wrote about in 'Look Homeward Angel.'

13. WNC Farmers Market -- a fun place to buy organic produce and other local delights.

14. WNC Nature Center -- a nature park home to a zoo of animals native to the WNC mountains, including panthers and cougars, bears, otters, and eagles, among many others.

15. Zebulon Vance Birthplace State Historic Site -- the homestead of the governor who led North Carolina through the devastating, tumultuous years of the Civil War.

16. Asheville Urban Trail -- Asheville's fascinating history told in statuary and mosaics. There are more than thirty artworks spaced along a 1.7 mile-long trail winding through downtown. One station honors Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, who taught music in a downtown Asheville school before leaving to earn her medical degree. Another resembles an unfinished gravestone, with bronze sculptors tools on a pedestal nearby, to mark the location of the monument and gravestone shop once run by the father of Thomas Wolfe.

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Of course, that's not all there is to see in Asheville, but that covers the bases. All... um, sixteen of them. Anyway, outside of town, there's plenty more to see and do, including these hightlights:

City of Black Mountain -- a town of artists east of Asheville.

Village of Flat Rock -- a "sattelite Charleston" where wealthy residents of Charleston, SC fled to escape the brutal summer heat of Low Country South Carolina, beginning in 1807. A forested village of jaw-dropping historic mansions, also home to the state theatre of North Carolina, the Flat Rock Playhouse.

Hendersonville -- a larger town just north of Flat Rock, it's home to a restored downtown with wonderful art and antique shopping, plus some good restaurants and other attractions such as a gem and mineral museum, and arts center that hosts world-class exhibitions, scenic overlooks and an historic cemetery, and performing arts to rival Asheville's -- and Asheville is an American capital of art, so that's saying something!

Saluda -- a pleasant, tiny village south of Hendersonville via I-26 home to quirky shops and a delightful setting in a gorge. You can access Pearson's Falls, a park featuring a spectacular waterfall, from Saluda and on your way back to Hendersonville via Hwy 176, there's an historic bridge where you can pull over to contemplate a whitwater river spilling along far below.

Brevard -- a nice little town in the waterfall country of Transylvania County, southwest of Asheville, boasting a downtown full of art and high-class shopping.

Connemara -- home of prolific poet and writer Carl Sandburg, where he wrote and raised goats before his death in the 1960's, in Flat Rock.

Cherokee Indian Reservation -- west of Asheville and accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Beyond the tacky kitsch of the town of Cherokee is the outstanding Museum of the Cherokee Indian as well as, for those interested, a casino.

Grandfather Mountain -- a privately-owned nature park in the vein of Chimney Rock, where visitors can experience the "Mile-High Swinging Bridge," and strange rock formations, including a ridgetop resembling an old man's profile, from which the park takes its name.

Chimney Rock Park -- a privately-owned nature park of more than a thousand acres where unusual rock formations, hiking trails, caves, springs, and a 402-ft tall waterfall are preserved.

Cradle of Forestry -- not only did George Vanderbilt decide to build his palatial Biltmore in Asheville, he also helped establish modern forestry in America. That legacy is preserved here, in Pisgah National Forest.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- just beyond the Cherokee Indian Reservation, the most-visited national park in the US.

Linville Caverns -- visitors here can explore a beautiful subterranean network of caves.

Mt. Mitchell State Park -- accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway, it's also a UN-designated heritage site, in recognition of Western North Carolina's imprtance to the world biosphere. The Amazonian rainforest is the only place in the world with more biodiversity of plants and animals than WNC.

Pisgah National Forest -- one of many national forests in the area, where visitors can hike or go whitewater rafting. In the Asheville area there are over a million acres of protected land, including national forests such as Pisgah and Nantahala.

Dupont State Forest -- featuring lakes, hiking paths, historic cemeteries from long-forgotten farmsteads, and three of the most beautiful waterfalls in the eastern US.

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Wanna know more? Just ask!

Sounds like a great vacation to me. Just a few off-the-cuff opinions:

Charleston has more to offer than Savannah, IMO, I might weight my time there more heavily. Tybee Island is nice, but really nothing to see that I'm aware of. It's a long way out to Hilton Head just for a day trip...you might want to spent a night there. Myrtle Beach is best avoided (especially around July 4th).

The coastal plain is beautiful and the mountains around Asheville are too. There's not much to see in the middle, I wouldn't make any overnight stops between the two.

Haunted has provided a travelogue on Asheville so I won't try to add anything except say that you have picked a great city to visit. And you'll be glad for the temperature change after being at the beach for a week.

Two nights in Savannah are PLENTY! Four in Charleston is a nice amount. Be sure to see a plantation--we like Middleton the best. Beaufort is worth a day trip or a stop on the way to Charleston--it is pronounced "beew-fert" as opposed to the NC town of "bow-fort". From Charleston I would head up the SC coast and stop in Georgetown (Revolutionary War coastal town--1 1/2 hours from C'ston) and then to Pawley's Island/Litchfield for a beach experience (half hour from Georgetown). The beaches are beautiful and uncrowded. Pawley's Island has a wonderful historic district dating from the 1700's when the rice planters of Charleston escaped their mosquito infested plantations for the beach. In my opinion Hilton Head is just an overbuilt beach development of no charm. Litchfield/Pawley's is just below MB, has really nice accomodations and if you want to golf you can. Just to the north is the town of Murrell's Inlet for the best seafood restaurants on the coast. For accomodations at Litchfield look up Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort. Finding accomodations for less than a week at that time will probably require a hotel (Litchfield Inn or the suite hotel at Litchfield by the Sea--or a Hampton Inn that is there--Litchfield Inn is beachfront with a pool--the others are not). For planning purposes from this part of the beach you can be in Asheville in about 6 hours (3 to Charlotte and another 2 to Asheville). I could not possibly amplify on HauntedHead's excellent coverage of Asheville. It really is a lovely area.

I second Gretchens suggestion of the Litchfield/Pawleys Island area.

It is south of Myrtle Beach proper but still considered part of the Grand Strand. Attractions are about 30 minutes north.

Since you are going to the deep south the hottest time of the year, you may want to stay out on the islands and sightsee in Savannah and Charleston at night.

Keep in mind that it will stay light outside until after 9PM.

Have fun and bring a good sunscreen. Don't forget to apply to your ears and tops of your feet. I've seen some nasty burns.

I agree with previous poster...I would avoid Myrtle Beach altogether..unless you like crowds,buffets,cheap golf,and Branson type entertainment on the beach.Myrtle Beach is not in the same league as the others.