Beaufort

Beaufort (pronounced 'BYOO-fort,' not the French way) is a small coastal city of about 13,000 residents on Port Royal Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 110 kilometers southwest of Charleston and 80 kilometers north of Savannah, Georgia. The town is the second-oldest in South Carolina (founded 1711, after Charleston in 1670) and the second-largest historic district in the country (behind Charleston) — the entire downtown is a National Historic Landmark District with about 100 surviving antebellum mansions in the distinctive Lowcountry style (large piazzas/porches facing the prevailing summer breezes, raised foundations to escape the seasonal flooding, double-tiered porticos, the surrounding live-oak-and-Spanish-moss canopies that define the Lowcountry visual landscape). The town was founded as a planned colonial settlement on the model of Charles Town (modern Charleston) and grew prosperous through the 18th-century deerskin trade with the Creek Native Americans and the 19th-century Sea Island cotton plantations.

Beaufort's defining cultural depth comes from the surrounding Sea Islands (the chain of barrier islands extending south to Tybee Island near Savannah) and the surviving Gullah Geechee culture. The Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of West African slaves who were brought to the Sea Islands to work the colonial-and-antebellum rice and cotton plantations. The relative isolation of the Sea Islands (no road connections to the mainland until the early 20th century) allowed the Gullah Geechee to preserve a distinctive culture combining African (particularly Sierra Leonean, Liberian, and Senegalese) traditions with the Lowcountry geography — including the Gullah language (an English-based creole with significant West African vocabulary and grammar, still spoken by about 200,000-300,000 people across the South Carolina/Georgia/Florida coast), distinctive Gullah cuisine (the famous shrimp-and-grits, frogmore stew/Lowcountry boil, hoppin' John, gumbo), traditional Gullah sweetgrass basket weaving (a UNESCO-recognized craft tradition still practiced in St. Helena Island and the surrounding communities), and the Gullah spiritual traditions (Praise houses, the famous 'shouting tradition' worship style that influenced American gospel music). The Penn Center on St. Helena Island (the historic 1862 school for freed slaves, now operating as a cultural center and museum) is one of the most important Gullah cultural sites.

Beyond the cultural depth, Beaufort offers significant natural and recreational attractions. Hunting Island State Park (32 km east of Beaufort on Hunting Island) is one of South Carolina's most-visited state parks — a barrier island with 8 km of pristine sand beach, the famous 1875 Hunting Island Lighthouse (the only publicly accessible lighthouse on the South Carolina coast; visitors can climb the 167 steps for panoramic views), surrounding salt-marsh boardwalks, and the famous 'graveyard of trees' (dramatic dead-tree skeletons standing on the beach where the rising sea has eroded the original forest). The surrounding ACE Basin (the 350,000-acre estuary at the confluence of the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers) is one of the largest undeveloped estuarine systems on the US East Coast. Beaufort is the gateway to Daufuskie Island (the most isolated Gullah cultural site, accessible only by boat from Hilton Head; the famous Pat Conroy novel 'The Water Is Wide' is set on Daufuskie). The town is also closely associated with the writer Pat Conroy (Beaufort native; 'The Prince of Tides,' 'The Great Santini,' and 'The Water Is Wide' are set in the Beaufort and surrounding Sea Islands area; the famous filming locations for several Hollywood adaptations are on Beaufort's waterfront). Most international visitors stay 2-4 nights in Beaufort, often combined with Charleston and/or Savannah on a longer Lowcountry coastal route.