Charleston, SC

Charleston is one of the best places in the world to me. I took pictures like a maniac and wore Brent out with it, haha. I figured I'd share my favorites and where we love to go when we visit!

Food:

Hominy Grill has THE BEST BRUNCH you could ever imagine. I would move to Charleston just so I could eat at this place whenever I wanted. This past time I got huevos rancheros and Brent got smothered eggs. The huevos rancheros comes with a yummy crispy tortilla on the bottom and black beans, rice, 2 poached eggs (I get mine cooked all the way), pico, and avocados. The poached eggs is an amazing piece of southern cornbread, rib gravy (with rib pieces), 2 poached eggs, and diced potatoes on the side.

Lagunitas Tap Room is great, but has a small menu. It's an awesome 3 story tall building catered to brews and brewing. I loved my pulled pork bbq sandwich and Brent had a great hamburger. The place is amazingly cool looking inside but the best part for me is eating out on the street and people watching.

Jestine's Kitchen has amazing southern soul food and has been featured in so many magazines and tv shows. You immediately get an appetizer of some sort of pickled cucumbers (not to be confused with actual pickles) brought out. They're different, but oddly refreshing. I got meatloaf with fried okra and mac n' cheese. Brent got pecan crusted fried chicken and was a little copy cat and got the same sides as I did. We finished it off with some coca cola cake and took a stroll down King Street afterwards because we were both so full we were about to explode.

Carmellas Dessert Bar is the cutest!! They've got an espresso bar, actual bar, and all kinds of desserts and cafe foods. We stopped by around 9:30 one night to sit outside and eat a giant chocolate cake and ice cream. The whole experience made it the best dessert ever.

Reds Ice House is over in Mount Pleasant and the place I like to get my seafood fix. Which really just means crab legs. It's a super fun place to hang on the water and sometimes you'll see dolphins swimming around if you're lucky. They have a huge outside bar area where dogs are welcome, which I think is adorable because there's always a few accompanying their humans. They had a really good band playing the night we went, too. So obviously, we had crab legs. We also had one of the best appetizers ever - fried shrimp and cheese hush puppies with some kind of amazing tartar sauce like dipping sauce.

Favorite Things To Do:

-Go downtown and shop King Street, Meeting Street, and the straw market. The straw market has a little bit of everything.. t-shirts, hand painted canvases, local artist's and photographer's work, shoes, hats, all kinds of unique jewelry, ornaments, food, home decor. You name it and it's probably there.

-Visit the Waterfront Park with the adorable pineapple fountain. Grab a swing if you can when you're here! It's a nice way to relax in the shade and look out at the water and the Cooper River Bridge.

-Go to Isle of Palms and/or Folly Beach. They're both the cutest areas with good food and clean beaches.

-Go on a ghost tour. This is my must-do every trip!!! They never get old to me. Bulldog Tour company is the best and they always have the most interesting and educated tour guides. You always get a walk around the city and lots of great stories. They have an old city jail tour, graveyard tour, dungeon tour, and the dark side of Charleston tour, which is about prostitution in Charleston and about how those sneaky hussies ran the business.

-Go on any tour! There is so much amazing history in Charleston. Go on a ferry tour which takes you by Fort Sumter. Go on a general history tour and learn about the infamous southern mansions. The list goes on and on.

-Go down Rainbow Row on East Bay Street. This is probably the cutest and most charming street in America. It is to me, at least. It's called Rainbow Row because these beautiful old homes are all a different color. I couldn't get enough of taking pictures down through there.

-Go to The Battery. This area is right on the water. You can always watch some sailboats cruise around while you walk by the water. There's also tons of shaded area for you to sit, relax, and take in all the history that's happened there.

These are all iPhone pictures edited with VSCO, for anyone wondering.