Best Things to Do Near Tidewater Plantation Right Now

Ask a longtime Tidewater Plantation resident where they go when they need twenty minutes outside the gate, and you'll get one of two answers almost every time: north toward Little River, or east toward the ocean. Rarely both in the same week. That split isn't random. The two spots people default to sit on opposite sides of the neighborhood, run on opposite economics, and reward opposite kinds of patience. Most guides to this stretch of the coast treat them as interchangeable bullet points under "outdoor things to do." They aren't. One is a publicly held, free-forever nature trail. The other is a private business that has been charging visitors to walk on it since before most current residents moved in.

That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should, because it flips the assumption most people carry around without checking it.

The spot that feels hidden is the one that's free

Vereen Memorial Historical Gardens sits off Highway 179 near where Highway 17 crosses into North Carolina, a short drive north from Tidewater Plantation through Little River. It doesn't look like a public amenity from the road. The property is 114 acres of woodland and salt marsh, and it still carries the feel of the family plantation it once was, in part because it was one. In 1972, the Vereen family donated the property to the Horry County Historical Society, and it has stayed in public hands ever since.

The site's own promotional material still describes it as a bit of a "Hidden Jewel" for 30 years, but that reputation is starting to crack. Vereen Gardens and the C. B. Berry Community and Historical Center are becoming more popular and known every day, and programs and activities are increasing every season. If you've had the boardwalk mostly to yourself on a weekday morning, that's a window that's closing, not one that's guaranteed.

What you'll actually find there:

• A 2.3-mile loop trail rated easy, with an elevation gain of about 68 feet and roughly 30 to 60 minutes to complete
• No admission charge at all, and hours running 8:00 a.m. to sunset, daily, year-round
• A loop section that's wheelchair-friendly, plus leashed-dog access
• Boardwalks that carry you out over the salt marsh to a gazebo view of the Intracoastal Waterway
• The Vereen family cemetery, with grave markers the property's own history dates back to the Revolutionary War

There's also a quieter, stranger detail that keeps showing up in visitor accounts: the Wishing Tree, a spot on the boardwalk where people hang oyster shells they've collected from the marsh floor. Visitors can make a wish at a special tree hidden along the boardwalk, and the wish is said to come true when the shell falls from the tree. Nobody built that. It's the kind of thing that only accumulates in a place people keep returning to on their own, without a marketing push.

One practical note before you go: bring your own supplies. There are no bathroom facilities on site, portable toilets only, and no gift shop, snack stand, or gate attendant to help you out.

The spot that feels public is the one that charges

Head the other direction, toward the ocean and the Cherry Grove section of North Myrtle Beach, and you land at Cherry Grove Pier. It looks and feels like a public amenity, the kind of civic fixture a beach town would maintain with tax dollars. It isn't. The pier has been privately owned by the Prince family since 1965, and that ownership status comes with a detail a lot of visitors don't expect the first time: it's privately owned and not owned by the city or state, so the owners can charge a small walk-on fee to go out to the end and back, with young children free.

The pier earns that fee with a longer résumé than most casual visitors realize. It was built in the 1950s and rebuilt after Hurricane Hugo, then remodeled and lengthened again after Hurricane Floyd tore through in 1999. What stands today runs 985 feet into the Atlantic, with the only two-story observation deck among privately owned piers in North Myrtle Beach. It also holds a piece of fishing history that's hard to overstate: in 1964, angler Walter Maxwell landed a 1,780-pound tiger shark off the pier, a catch that stands as the only all-tackle world record ever recorded in South Carolina.

None of that is roped off behind a museum case. It's a working pier with a tackle shop that rents rods and sells bait, and Driftwood, an on-pier restaurant serving burgers, seafood baskets, and cocktails at the end of the walk. You can fish without owning a single piece of gear, order a plate at sunset, and never leave the structure.

Why the timing doesn't overlap the way you'd guess

Here's where the two places actually connect, instead of just sitting next to each other on a list. Cherry Grove Pier has an entire fall identity built around fishing tournaments, with the pier publishing its own 2026 tournament schedule for anglers to plan around. But fall doesn't mean more people on the pier overall. General beach traffic thins out once summer ends, even while the tournament calendar fills in behind it. What changes in fall isn't the headcount, it's the kind of activity: fewer sunbathers wandering out to look at the water, more anglers there for a specific event.

Vereen Gardens doesn't run on that kind of calendar at all. Its draw is shade and stillness, useful precisely when the heat is at its worst and a shaded, marsh-side walk beats standing in direct sun. That makes late summer, right now, one of the more sensible times to use the free trail, before the air cools and the pier's tournament season takes over the other side of the neighborhood's routine.

Neither place needs the other to justify the drive. But knowing which one is free and which one bills you before you've caught anything saves you the small, avoidable surprise of reaching for a wallet you left in the car, or wondering why the "hidden" spot up the road never asked for a dime.

The pattern, once you've done both

The people who've lived inside Tidewater Plantation long enough to have a rotation tend to land on something close to this: Vereen Gardens for a quiet, unhurried morning when the goal is just to be outside, and Cherry Grove Pier for an evening with a plan, whether that's a line in the water or a table at Driftwood as the sun drops behind the marsh. One asks nothing of you but time. The other asks for a small fee and hands back more than sixty years of history under your feet.

That's the version of "things to do nearby" that actually holds up once you've lived here a while, not the generic list that treats every marsh boardwalk and every pier as the same kind of stop.

If you're weighing a move to this stretch of the North Strand, or you already call Tidewater Plantation home and you're curious what your property is worth in today's market, Karen Sells the Coastal Carolinas knows this neighborhood block by block, not just by the amenity list. Start Your Coastal Home Search whenever you're ready to talk specifics.