Top Things to Do In Charleston

For several years, my mom has lived near the lovely South Carolina city of Charleston. With a slow Southern pace, access to beaches and historic sites, and a world-class food scene, visiting Charleston is a pleasure. If you’ll be spending a day or two or three, read my tips on the top things to do in Charleston.

We recently took a break from the boat and Australia and flew back to North America to visit family and friends. Here’s one of the places we loved visiting!

About Charleston, SC

tree, Charleston SC
A moss covered tree in a Charleston park

Charleston is notable for many reasons, including as one of the oldest cities in the USA, founded in the 1600s. This port city played a role in many of the country’s wars, and battleground sites and forts still surround the city, providing history lessons to many visitors. The most populous city in South Carolina, with just over 155,000 residents, it is filled with notable colonial buildings, and pretty parks and gardens.

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Highlights of the Hinterlands

Over 85% of Australia’s population lives within 50KM of the coast. The area beyond is called hinterland. In the three months since landing in Queensland, Australia, we’ve driven into the hinterlands and explored a few times. These are our highlights of the hinterlands.

Driving to the Hinterlands

Getting to the hinterlands has been easy, as they aren’t far from the big cities and the coast, and on well traveled roads. By now, we’re used to driving on the left side of the road and the right side of the car. Australia has plenty of highways leading between cities and into the hinterlands. The main concern is driving at night because kangaroos come out of nowhere.

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Eating in New Zealand

One of the best parts of visiting a new place is trying the food, and in New Zealand it ended up being one of the highlights. Our experiences eating in New Zealand were overwhelmingly positive. Over six months, we sampled delicious food, local craft beer, and wonderful wine. Here’s some tips if you find yourself in this beautiful country looking for something good to eat.

You Won’t Go Hungry in New Zealand

After years cruising in barren habitats from The Bahamas to Tonga, I will never forget our gleeful first visit to a New Zealand supermarket. We felt like celebrating when we spotted the range of produce and the selection of foods we wouldn’t even eat! Our first visits to grocery stores, farmers markets, and specialty shops in New Zealand were much the same, impressing us with the variety of fresh, high quality food of all groups. We saw more fruit, veggies, bread, cheese, etc.etc. than anywhere we’d sailed the boat in a long time. From produce to dairy to meat and seafood, eating in New Zealand includes the widest choice of the best ingredients.

produce aisle supermarket, eating in New Zealand
Produce aisle in a New Zealand supermarket

Popular New Zealand Foods

New Zealand food covers a wide range of cuisines, with a mixture of influences, especially British and Asian. It’s truly global, with lots of Indian and Thai restaurants, which is good for vegetarians.

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Best of Bundaberg

We stopped into the Bundaberg Port Marina thinking it would only be for a weekend. We had work to do, which took so long, we spent over a week in Bundaberg. The good news is we got important boat jobs done, and experienced the best of Bundaberg, Australia.

About Bundaberg

Bundaberg, or “Bundy” for short, is an industrial town of about 100,000 people. Located up the Burnett River, north of Hervey Bay, it was our stop after K’Gari. Upon arriving, we noticed a lot of smokestacks and water tanks. Famous for making rum, the land is primarily sugar cane farms, with little trains moving the supplies between.

iconic Bundaberg scenery, smokestacks and sugar train
Bundaberg smokestacks and sugar train

The downtown is surprising, though, with boarded up buildings interspersed with lovely churches and heritage architecture. It’s nowhere near as exciting as Brisbane, but we had some fun finding the best of Bundaberg.

Bundy CBD buildings
The CBD has some heritage architecture
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Nature’s Paradise K’Gari Island

One of our Queensland highlights is the nature’s paradise K’gari Island, a huge island a few miles off the coast. K’gari is the recently readopted Aboriginal name for Fraser Island. The name means paradise, which we found highly appropriate for this beautiful place.

About K’gari Island

K’gari is the world’s largest sand island, 122km long. It’s been called Fraser Island for generations, but the name is shifting back to K’Gari Island.

The unique geography makes it one of Australia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Not only is it the largest sand island, it’s also the only one where tropical rainforests grow in the sand. And they grow! Some of the trees on the island are towering and hundreds of years old. Add to that perched freshwater lakes and miles upon miles of sandy beaches that you can drive on, and the name Paradise really resonates.

ancient trees, K'Gari island rain forest
Ancient trees grow in sand on K’gari Island

Accessing K’Gari Island

This natural treasure is a popular day trip from the mainland. The common way to get to K’gari is the ferry from Hervey Bay, south of Bundaberg. We sailed from Mooloolaba, after Brisbane, happily stopping in a couple anchorages on the way north up the protected west coast of K’gari Island.

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