Dream Vacation on a Budget!

Have you ever been to historic Charleston, SC? Do you like white sand beaches with warm water? Golf, nature walks, safe bike trails, eating? Do you like luxurious accommodations? Are you on a tight budget? Have I ever got a deal for you! Come stay at The Dragonfly on Edisto Island. The Dragonfly is our beach house occupied sporadically by my family but most of the time available to YOU for a vacation accommodation. This is not your moldy old run of the mill beach cabin. The Dragonfly is a modern four year old house with plenty of conveniences and luxuries, four bedrooms, two bathrooms plus a private outdoor bath house (for those frequent beach swims), three televisions, three porches, modern kitchen with dishwasher, big fridge…the works. There are enough beds for ten people plus a baby crib, ceiling fans in all the rooms, and of course four-season climate conditioning. It's all in a setting of beautiful Palmetto, Magnolia, and moss draped Live oak trees.

But, the house is nothing compared to the location. Location location location! It is a one block barefoot & swimsuit walk to public access ocean beach, 600 feet to be exact. If you tire of the quiet relaxing beach bum life, there is plenty of other stuff to do on this 55 square mile historic sea island. You can rent fat tired bicycles and cruise the island. Play golf. Go fishing. There is a huge state park in two parts. One part has a long undeveloped beach for walking and swimming. The other part occupies maritime forest and pristine salt marshes. There's a modern interpretive center in the middle of it in case you are into wildlife and botany. The beaches are a prime nesting ground for Loggerhead sea turtles. In the summer you can sometimes see them hatch. Do you like to kayak? No problemo. Rent one at the small local marina and take a marsh creek tour sometimes accompanied by playful bottlenose dolphins. Do you like to eat? Of course you do. Edisto has several tasty and affordable restaurants, four with bars. Excepting the Sub shop in the BP, none are chains.

Did I mention windsurfing? Winds are often sporty. The water is warm enough for no-wetsuit windsurfing May through September. Here's an April 3 picture.

The island is oozing with natural and human history too. Pleistocene fossils of sharks teeth, and fossilized mammal and reptile bone fragments can be found on the beach. The first humans were Native Americans and their shell mounds and pottery shards are still about. In the heyday of antebellum times it was one of the richest places in the country with magnificent plantations passing through the eras of indigo, rice, and king cotton. Several plantation houses are still standing. You can get a historic tour and learn about the pirate raids, duels, and the civil war upheaval.

So, you're still not convinced. You get claustrophobic on even a large island and you want a city experience. Maybe you're from New York or Caracas and you get spooked by quiet. Not a problem; you're connected to the mainland by a bridge. By Mapquest it's only 46.4 miles to historic Charleston, an easy one hour trip. Drink up the history, wallow in the art galleries, and eat yourself to death in restaurants of this four century old city. Want to take in a bigger chunk of the low-country culture and history. It's an easy day trip to beautiful historic Beaufort and Savannah. Consulting Mapquest again, it's 1 hour 26 minutes to Beaufort and 2 hours exactly to Savannah.

So back to the Dragonfly. How much is it gonna cost to stay there? Check out the rates and you can book it at the property manager's Atwood Vacations site. Be sure to take the virtual tour there. If you are really on a super tight budget, avoid the high rent season of June through mid-August when school is out. If you're flexible about when you can go, you can really get a great deal. For example if you choose a time when school is in session and pick a 5-day stretch of Monday to Friday in a week that already has the weekend booked, just enter a comment after this post. I will make you a really good deal of less than half the listed full week rent. If you're a retired Canuck you might want to chill out (Oops; bad metaphor) warm up there for a couple of mid-winter months when we go away XC skiing in the northwest. Another chance to negotiate a good deal.

I leave you with this scene of a little before dinner volleyball match with our other geezer friends.