Myrtle Beach

Twice a year, my wife and I take two week's long vacation in warm climates. The first one usually takes place in April/May which means we go to Florida or somewhere on the Gulf Coast, but not the western part of Florida.  In September of that same year our second vacation takes place at Myrtle Beach, SC and we stay at the same condo in South MB that we have stayed at for the last 12 years.

When we retired in 2015, we took vacations every other month for a week until COVID hit, but we always found time to spend at least a week or two at Myrtle Beach.

Myrtle Beach is about six and a half hours from where we live in East TN, if we drive just a few miles over the speed limits.  If we try to drive faster, we may get there in a tad under five hours, but we have burned more gasoline and increased our stress by looking out for highway patrol who have gotten more sneaky.

We may take open snacks with us along with ground coffee and filters but everything else we buy down there, knowing it will be more expensive.  Our condo comes with a fully equipped kitchen, but we only use it for breakfast and lunch.  We always go out to dinner, making sure that we eat at a nice restaurant at least half of the nights.

We always rent chairs and umbrellas and take beach towels that I place in the chair because my butts starts to hurt after a few hours.

Each morning, we are under the umbrella by 9:00 am and we leave when the lifeguards start taking down the umbrellas at 4:00 pm.  During the day, my wife reads while I either write poetry or listen to audio books on tape.  Sometimes, we walk along the shoreline and sometimes, we just sit and watch the waves.

Myrtle Beach, when I was growing up, was considered to be the POOR MAN's VACATION...  which typically meant back then that uneducated families went to Myrtle Beach, not the educated, sophisticated ones.  I would say that philosophy has changed substantially over the last 50-60 years.