Audioguides Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach gets its name from the wax-myrtle shrub that grows along the Carolina coast, and the town took shape in the early 1900s when Franklin Burroughs imagined turning this stretch of sand into a resort destination. The idea worked beyond anyone's expectations: Myrtle Beach now receives over 20 million visitors a year to a city of about 35,000 permanent residents. The Grand Strand, as the 60-mile arc of beach is called, runs from North Myrtle Beach south to Georgetown County, and the built-up portion near the city center is dense with arcades, seafood restaurants, waterparks, and hotels stacked tight enough to shade the sand by late afternoon.

The golf claim here is not exaggerated.

The Myrtle Beach area has roughly 100 courses within a reasonable drive, and golfers from across the eastern United States make annual pilgrimages to play the better-known tracks at Pawleys Island and Calabash. The Myrtle Beach Boardwalk opened in 2010 along a stretch of oceanfront that had been an empty gap between resort developments, and National Geographic named it one of the top three boardwalks in the country. The SkyWheel at the boardwalk's north end rises 200 feet above the beach in glass-enclosed gondolas.