Charleston, SC

Charleston, SC is a very old city by American standards, and as such, is rich with culture and a diverse history befitting such a diverse city. Charleston, SC was, of course, originally Charles Towne in the Carolina colony, founded in 1670, more than a hundred years before the birth of the United States. By 1690, only twenty years after its founding, Charles Towne was already the fifth largest city in North America. Charleston, SC, remained, in fact, in the United States’ top ten most populated cities all the way until the 1840 census was taken. Today, Charleston, SC is estimated to have a population of around one hundred and eight thousand people within the city proper, with an additional five hundred thousand in the outlying metropolitan areas of the city.

The city is located just south of the center of South Carolina’s coastline, at the place where the Ashley River joins with the Cooper River. Charleston, SC was named after King Charles the II of England. Charleston, SC is apparently just as great a place to live in as it is to visit, and visitors are guaranteed to be treated well with that famous southern hospitality – Charleston has been labeled the United States’ best-mannered city for over a decade now by Marjabelle Young Stewart, America’s most prolific etiquette expert. Charleston, SC is famous for producing the country’s first “livability court” to assure high standards of living among all its residents.

Charleston, SC has been a functional city for almost three and a half centuries now – needless to say, it has a lot of history to go around, especially for an American city. When Charleston, SC was first founded, the vast majority of the United States was still empty save for a few roving nomadic tribes, and very little of it had even been seen at all by European explorers. Charleston, SC was founded under the rule of Charles II of England, the first king to return to the throne after Cromwell’s Protectorate. To facilitate commerce, the city migrated slightly in its first few decades out onto the peninsula in order to be “a great port towne,” as the royal reports had it.

Charleston, SC was often under attack by powers hostile first to Britain and then, after America declared its independence, the United States. Spain and France both contested England’s claim to the region of land holding Charleston, SC, and as a result often conducted raids against it. In its early years, it was also often subjected to attacks by the local Native Americans, and then as well as later, pirate raids off the sea. Needless to say, Charleston, SC’s first few decades were difficult ones – though ones well overcome in order to allow the city to grow into the prosperous and peaceful city it is today.

For the interested traveler, there are a few possible ways to get into the city, all of them worth considering for the frugal traveler. If you’re traveling into Charleston, SC on business, a little research beforehand might save your company some money and help you get a raise as a result. The most obvious point of entry is, of course, the city’s airport – the Charleston International Airport, the busiest passenger airport in the entire state of North Carolina. It’s estimated that around four thousand people go through the airport every day, and the Charleston, SC airport has the means and transportation to handle it.

Then again, you could always drive. The city’s main interstate entrance is on interstate 26, which provides connections to the airport, interstate 95, and Columbia. There are, of course, plenty of other roads into and through the city of Columbia, but perhaps none of them are more impressive than the one that hangs suspended hundreds of feet above the water across the Cooper River – the Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge, built in 2005, and the largest cable-stayed bridge in the entire Western Hemisphere. The bridge links Charleston with Mount Pleasant, and replaced the highly unstable and unsafe bridges that had sufficed before its construction.

The visitor to Charleston, SC can expect fairly warm temperatures throughout the entire year, a definite plus to those who hail from the frozen north and are looking for a reprieve from the cold, or those from the south who can’t withstand it in the first place. Average temperatures range between sixty and ninety degrees through the course of the year, with recorded highs above eighty in every month. It rarely snows in Charleston, SC, and the highest temperature ever recorded there was a mere 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Charleston, SC is, however, very humid, and rain is common, especially in the wetter months of the year. Summer is the wettest season in Charleston, SC – in fact, nearly half the city’s yearly precipitation falls during the summer during the frequent and spectacular thundershowers.

Because of the hot, humid, and often wet nature of the summers in Charleston, SC, it’s often a good idea for visitors to plan their trips in other parts of the year – as we’ve pointed out, the winters in Charleston, SC are generally very mild and might make good times to visit the city. Fall and spring, are, of course, always beautiful – spring, with the dew on the grass and the flowers springing to life, is an absolutely spectacular time to visit this great city.

One of the great advantages to visiting the south, for the tourist Yankee or the foreign visitor, is the smooth, slow, and highly refined accent of the cultured south. Charleston, SC is a great place to witness this accent, with one interesting addition – the peculiarly Charlestonian dialect found only in this city and rapidly disappearing even there. That dialect, said by some to be caused by early Jewish immigration into the city, includes long mid-vowels and occasional rising inflections, and is known throughout the southeast.

One very interesting factor of the dialects of Charleston, SC is the remnants of the Gullah language originally spoken by African American slaves when the city was still part of a slave state. In some parts of Charleston, SC, the Gullah language is still spoken by some African American locals – however, urbanization, modernization, and expansion of the city – the most rapidly growing in the state – are quickly eliminating that particular pit of the city’s cultural and ethnic history.

If there’s one thing Charleston, SC is famous for, it’s the city’s full embrace of religion. The city has, in fact, long been noted for the sheer number of denominations and churches that exist side by side within the city’s limits. Those churches and denominations cover every possible facet of Christianity, from Catholicism (the city is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston) and the Episcopalians (it is also the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina) – in fact, one of the very few remaining Huguenot congregations in the entire United States is located in Charleston. The Huguenots were the Protestants persecuted by the Catholic Guise family in the French wars of religion under Henry VII of France.

The skyline of the city of Charleston, SC is, in fact, quite spotted with steeples and the rising architecture of churches of every sort, and is one of the main reasons Charleston, SC has earned the title it holds today – the “holy city” – for surely a city with this many churches must be holy. Be that or no, Charleston, SC has a wealth of culture and history in its churches alone, and a religious historian could spend a lifetime studying them and the history of the church in the south through the evidence available right here in Charleston, SC.

No matter what the reason you have for visiting the scenic city of Charleston, SC, if you plan your visit right, you might be able to add a few extra items of some interest to your itinerary. Charleston, SC is home to a large number of festivals and annual attractions celebrating cuisine, music, the arts, history, and any other number of things the city’s residents are wont to appreciate. The Spoleto Festival USA, for example, is a seventeen day art fair featuring over one hundred performances by individual artists in a number of different disciplines, promising a great show to anyone who feels like attending.

A more geographically specific art event is the MOJA Art Festival, a huge two-week affair designed to celebrate the wealth of culture that can be found in African American and Caribbean art, music, and culture. There are plenty of other events and exhibitions, too – the Southeastern Wildlife Exhibition, the Food + Wine Festival, and the Coopers River Bridge Run are only a few – so do some research before your visit and see if anything else of interest will be happening in the city during your stay. There almost always is, so a little education isn’t going to hurt you.

IF you’re visiting Charleston, SC and happen to have some extra free time on your hands, even after just walking the streets and visiting any festivals that might be happening in the area at the time, you might want to look into visiting one of Charleston, SC’s many cultural centers, museums, art galleries, and historical landmarks. As we’ve already said, Charleston, SC’s rich colonial history makes it a perfect place to build museums, and museum builders have taken the city up on that – there are plenty of museums in the area for the avid history buff, still very interesting for the average person.

The Audubon Swamp Garden, South Carolina Aquarium, and Fort Sumter are all also in the area, as is the Gibbes Museum of Art. The Gibbes Museum is one of the oldest establishments built for the celebration and display of art in the entire country and is today home to over 10,000 works of fine artwork. Patriot Point in nearby Mount Pleasant across the great Arthur Ravenal Bridge, houses a number of old naval vessels in a large historical display, the perfect place to visit for the amateur naval historian.

For the business traveler, Charleston, SC is a great place to be. With great restaurants to hold business dinners and impress clients, galleries, and sights to see during your free time, and a full range of great hotels in an old and storied city, Charleston, SC is nearly the perfect place to attend a business meeting. Charleston, SC offers a full range of great restaurants, ranging from the fancy five star establishments built to impress to the cheaper varieties, perfect for the traveling businessman or businesswoman on a tight budget and tighter schedule. Charleston, SC also offers a full range of transportation options, from great roads and car rentals to busses and taxis. If you need to get somewhere, Charleston, SC’s mass transit solutions will help you do it. The moral of this whole story, though, is a simple one – if you take some time and do some research before you ever even visit Charleston, SC, you’ll be able to find out what to do and where to go before you even arrive.