Since I never went on a spring break trip while in college and Tori hasn’t taken one her first 3 years of school, we knew that this year would be the last year we had to take a true spring break trip. Now when most people plan a spring break trip they think Mexico or the Caribbean or at the very least Florida, but not us. Our first choice was Iceland (look out for a future post), but we soon realized that while we probably could fit everything into Tori’s spring break week, it would be a lot easier and cheaper to take the trip another year when we weren’t quite so constrained on time/dates. Once Iceland was officially off the table, I took a look at our new budget (approximately $1,000/person including hotels, flights, food, tours, etc.) and I presented Tori with three options: 1.) Las Vegas & the Grand Canyon, 2.) Charleston, South Carolina, or 3.) All-Inclusive in Mexico/Caribbean. It didn’t take long for us to settle on Charleston, especially when we realized that with the low gas prices and my Prius (yay for 50 miles per gallon), we could turn it into a road trip and add in Savannah, GA  and the beach while still keeping to our budget.

After we decided on the where, the rest of the trip began to fall into place. I am a loyal Hilton Honors member, and so I started taking a look at the hotels we’d be staying at along the way. I even decided to get a Hilton credit card because they were running a special that if you spent $1000 on the card in the first three months you would get 60,000 points. Between those points and the ones I’ve earned from previous travel, we will be covering 2.5 nights through points. I also, somewhat mistakenly, bought a Hilton Grand Vacation deal for two nights in Myrtle Beach which we will be taking advantage of, and so all in all we are only paying full price for 2 of our nights out of 7. In the end we’ll be staying 1 night outside of Charleston, 3 nights in Charleston, 1 night in Savannah, & 2 nights in Myrtle Beach for a little less than $700 plus 74,000 points .

After our hotels were finalized, I began to look into tours & restaurants. We still have a couple of week’s before our trip, but we’ve planned out most of our activities for Charleston. Take a look below to see where we are planning to go so far!

Charleston

1. Sip & See Tour
2. Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
3. Breakfast at the Hominy Grill
4. History & Homes Tour
5. Evening Carriage Ride Tour
6. Old Exchange Building
7. Upper King Street Culinary Tour
8. Charleston Harbor Tour
9. Boone Hall Plantation
10. Dinner at Bowen’s Island Restaurant

Are your favorite tours & restaurants in Charleston on our list? Do you have suggestions of must see (or eat) places in Savannah or Myrtle Beach?