America’s favourite holiday city is one few Australians have heard of

Ask Americans which US city they’d like to visit, and chances are they’ll say moss-draped Charleston. Thanks to its Southern hospitality, time-warp architecture, walkability and pretty flower-filled window boxes, South Carolina’s largest city has been named the favourite of Travel + Leisure magazine’s readers for the past 12 years.

Many Australians, though, know little about this Atlantic Coast charmer. Our top-10 US choices are California, New York, Hawaii, Florida, Alaska, Washington state, DC, Georgia, Illinois and Massachusetts, according to a Brand USA 2023 survey. For those who said Georgia, here’s the great news: South Carolina is right next door.

Last rays of the sun on the colourful buildings in Charleston’s historic district.Credit: Getty Images

My getting-to-know-Charleston adventure starts by checking in to the flamingo-pink Mills House Hotel. The downtown hotel, which opened in 1853, has a roller-coaster history. Guests helped save it from the city’s Great Fire of 1861, President Roosevelt stayed there in 1901 and, after falling into disrepair, it was rebuilt in the late 1960s.

After rolling through three other multinational hotel chains, it was renovated again in 2022 and is now part of the Curio Collection by Hilton. One sweet-as-iced-tea, in-room touch is a throw cushion printed with the phrase, “Well, I do declare!”

Mills House Hotel opened in 1853.Credit: Getty Images

I soon declare that my hotel is perfectly located. A ghost tour leads me through nearby streets to end among the tombstones behind the Circular Congregational Church. Wisps of Spanish moss dangling from overhead branches add to the spooky atmosphere. Ghosts abound in this city, which is still reckoning with its heart-rending slave-trade past.

It’s estimated almost half of all enslaved Africans to enter North America arrived via Charleston’s port. At that very spot where they were hauled ashore (if they survived the brutal Atlantic crossing while packed into holds like sardines), stands a new museum that explores the past while celebrating the present.

Plantation workers had picnics under the Angel Oak Tree. Some people swear the spirits of the enslaved still protect it.Credit: Getty Images/iStock

The International African American Museum doesn’t hold back when recounting Charleston’s painful history – yet that’s balanced with stories of survival and triumph. Its galleries include one dedicated to the culture of the Gullah Geechee – descendants of the enslaved – who creatively adapted to life in the marshes and waterways along a coastal corridor incorporating a region dubbed the Lowcountry.

Exhibits include a full-size bateau (boat) and a recreated “praise house” – a one-room building used as a place of worship on plantations where the enslaved farmed rice, indigo and cotton. The museum’s African Ancestors Memorial Garden is also alive with meaning: there is a poignant installation referencing the barbaric ocean crossings as well as a field of sweetgrass, a plant entwined with Gullah Geechee culture.

Handmade sweetgrass baskets at Charleston’s City Market hark back to a Gullah Geechee craft.Credit: Getty Images

Sweetgrass baskets make a just-right Charleston souvenir. Fifty resident artisans weave their magic at the Charleston City Market – an institution covering four city blocks. If Charleston’s humidity proves too much, head to Waterfront Park to catch a cooling breeze or, heck, splash around in the Pineapple Fountain. Pineapples symbolise hospitality, but this fountain also represents restoration and hope, as it was installed in the aftermath of 1989’s deadly Hurricane Hugo.

There’s more to see in the “Holy City” – more churches, naturally, and the pastel-splashed 13 Georgian townhouses that comprise East Bay Street’s Rainbow Row. North of town is Cypress Gardens, a ridiculously photogenic swamp garden used as a location for that soppy 2004 movie The Notebook.

In the other direction, on Johns Island, is the Angel Oak Tree. It’s estimated this sprawling live oak is 300 to 400 years old. Like the spot where the new museum stands, it is on hallowed ground. The land was once part of a plantation whose workers had picnics beneath the tree’s gnarled limbs. Some swear the spirits of the enslaved not only materialise around the tree but also have protected it all these years.

The details

Fly
Fly Qantas/American Airlines to Charleston via Dallas Fort Worth from Sydney and Melbourne. See qantas.com

See
The International African American Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, entry $US22 adult. Charleston City Market is open daily from 9.30am to 5pm. Cypress Gardens is open daily from 9am to 5pm, entry $US10 adult. The Angel Oak Tree is open daily, free admission. See iaamuseum.org, thecharlestoncitymarket.com, cypressgardens.berkeleycountysc.gov, charleston-sc.gov

Stay
The Mills House Hotel has rooms from $US189 a night. See millshouse.com

The writer was a guest of Travel South USA. See discoversouthcarolina.com