Spending 10 days in the Carolinas with my two 18 and 20 year old daughters as well as my wife proved to be somewhat of an endurance feat.

I really need to stop taking the kids with us, I think my wife and I are past that. Anyway, I did enjoy the Carolinas for my first visit. Arrived in Charlotte after a 5 hour flight through Cincinnati from Kansas City. Rented a SUV and off we went for our first three nights in Asheville.

Beautiful area, sparkling streams and a very eclectic downtown area. The girls really enjoyed eating at the Mellow Mushroom, although the youngest thought it was a pizza head shop....

Next day three of us went whitewater rafting for the first time down the Nantahala using the NOC rafting group as our guides. It was invigorating to say the least, not alot of rapids, but the water is frigid! Nothing like the muddy Missouri back home haha. I would do the whitewater again, just for the scenic beauty and try a different river for other views.

We visited Biltmore and it is truly a marvel of construction and decadence. We walked the gardens and took the house tour via the audio recordings. Two did the audio and two did just the reading. I think all enjoyed it. It is a minimum 4 hours there and much longer if you decide to take extra tours or do more walking around on your own, or lunch on the grounds.

While in Asheville we stayed at the Residence Inn at Biltmore -- I always love a Residence Inn as we used Marriott points and got a two bedroom suite -- I need space from my children.

We left for Myrtle Beach the next day and spent three lazy days at the Marriott Grande Dunes. Excellent pool and away from all the hubbub along the Grand Strand. The Grand Strand area reminds me of something out of college spring break, maybe I was only hopeful to return to those days!

Nice beaches, the hotel was awesome, although the rooms are really not that big for a resort but again I was using points so hate to be too picky about free rooms. The hotel had 2 large pools and a hottub as well as a pool slide at one end and easy access to the beach.

Our travel day after leaving Myrtle Beach turned out to be a good choice of driving as it was the day Tropical Storm Alberto passed through. We arrived in Charleston just with the ending line of storms departing the area, turned bright and sunny again.

Charleston is an excellent place to visit WITHOUT the kids. All they wanted to do was shop, history and sightseeing isn't worth the effort with them. But we did do a fun carriage ride and an AWFUL ghost tour, I have never taken a ghost tour and I doubt I ever will again -- when we got done we weren't even sure of the point of the tour, went into a dungeon that he really didn't talk much about and then he told us a few stories while sitting in the Battery and that was about it.

Again we stayed at a Residence Inn Charleston Riverview, not walking distance from downtown and I think that would be nice in the future, but again nice accomodations and a very nice outdoor pool and hottub for this kind of facility.

I would like to return someday and enjoy the excellent choices of restaurants and do a little more historical sightseeing, I did drive to the Citadel and do a quick walk through there. I really wanted to do Middleton Place but the girls wanted to shop on the last day, I thought about doing a tour by myself, but decided I was a bit tuckered for that and just enjoyed shopping for tops and bras with the rest of them.

Finally headed back to Charlotte to catch our flight, it was a whirlwind trip, so much to see and do and hopefully will return someday.

Great report!! I have always wanted to see the Biltmore, it's good to know that 1/2 day is needed. Sorry the ghost tour went so badly. I've been on some ghost tours that were fun and some that were not. The good ghost tours, IMO, always include at least some history of the city. It's a shame that doesn't interest your daughters. But that said, it still sounds like it was a great trip.

Glad you had a good trip!

Tip: next time stay south of Myrtle Beach in Garden City, Litchfield, or Pawleys Island. Much nicer areas and lovelier beaches.

Glad you had a great time; sounds you planned an excellent trip, beach, mountains & Charleston . . . hard to top that!

GoTravel, e tu?

I'll put our beach near where 4khansen stayed up against anything south of here (except perhaps Pawleys, I agree that's special).

Sorry Chuck, referring to the less crowded beaches on the south end and not to the quality of the beaches!

GoTravel,

all in fun. And you're right, it's now wall-to-wall people here. You should see what it's like at high tide: same immense number of people + vastly reduced surface area = the BIG squeeze.