Pawleys Island, SC 2025
- Melissa Carr
- Jul 31
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 1
From Sunrises to Milky Way we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves everyday at the Beach!
Before we arrived to Pawleys Island, we made a few stops on the way down!
Ellie our Sprinter Van- trekked around 2,000 miles on this 11 day adventure!
On day 1 of this roadtrip- We left Michigan first thing in the morning. We were meeting up with my sister Ashley and our nephew at The Italian Touch in Middletown, VA for a nice meal celebrating our niece and sons birthdays who both share the same birthday just 6 years apart! From there we traveled a couple more hours until we stopped for the night at Lady Glen Rest Area in Ruther Glen, VA.
On day 2 we woke up and headed over to Waffle House to give our boys their first waffle house experience. The waitress was very nice and gave the boys paper waffle house hats to wear! As we were on the way to Wilmington, one of our stops for diesel lead us to a fun gas station that had a variety of animals and different themes. It was a great opportunity for all of us to get out and stretch our legs! The boys were happy when we also surprised them that we would be staying at a KOA in Wilmington, NC for the night! Upon arrival to the KOA, we quickly grabbed our swim suits and headed to the pool to cool off. The KOA in Wilmington offers a lot of activities for the whole family. A few of our favorite were The swimming pool, the Gnome/Fairy Garden, Movie night at the Pavillion, a wooden playground pirate ship, a giant chess board, and a swing set. What's nice about Wilmington's KOA is that it's close enough to everything that we could Uber some Chipotle for dinner while still feeling secluded. Saturday morning, we tried their on-site cafe, it was nice and convenient!
Day 3- We quickly packed up and headed to Broadway at the Beach to attend "Awesome-con" hosted by Handyman Hal, Daniel's favorite character from a TV show. We thought this would be a quick meet and greet, but to our surprise we waited in a long line for 3 hours in 98° weather. One nice thing about this event is that they had a small concern inside that allowed those who wanted to take a break to go inside, with the nice cool air conditioning. David and I took turns holding our place in the line while the other parent went inside- this was really effective in keeping the kids engaged and cool, especially because they had indoor activities too such as small contests. Luckily they had outdoor activities too, meet and greets with additional people from the show, a balloon artist, a police officer with his Jeep police truck and photo opportunities with Handymans ATV. As we were getting closer to meeting handman, their was a window open selling ice cream to help us cool off! What happened next was equally as "sweet", as Daniel and DC finally got to meet Handyman, they were both very excited!!!! Handyman Hal was incredibly nice and even autographed hammers for the boys! After, this event we checked into our Beach house on Pawleys Island, where we would be staying for the next week!
Days 4-10 were filled with many fun activities such as:
A surprise bridal shower for my sister in law Chelsey and fiancé Tim!
We met our new niece Annabelle and nephew John! We also enjoyed getting to know our soon to be brother in law Tim a little more!
When we arrived to the Beach house, DC and John both were wearing the same sonic outfit! Totally unplanned- neither of us knew that the other owned that outfit!
We had a low country boil at our beach house! This is an annual tradition that we thoroughly enjoy!
A moms only outting with Chelsey, Victoria and myself.
David and DC enjoyed a golf and go carting day! It was exhausting!!!
Daniel and I went to the hammock shops with Papa, Ari, and Chelsey. The Hammock Shops in Pawleys has a very nice playground! We love this dinosaur!
One night for dinner we went to the Rustic Table in Pawleys and enjoyed a fabulous meal, I really liked their shrimp and grits! Afterwards, we walked over to Island Treats for Ice cream, while we enjoyed our ice cream we found the alligator in the pond! We also captured a beautiful rainbow in the pond.
Many Beach trips- including shady activities (It's nice to have a tent!)
We also had some family visits with Grandma and cousins!
DC was able to experience his first boogie board.
Daniel held a starfish.
We also found a lot of different sea life.
David captured some cool photos like the Milky Way and a beautiful sunrise on our last day!
Saturday July 26th, we left our beach house early in the morning for a quick breakfast at Bojangles and to say Goodbye to Papa, Chelsey, and Ari. After breakfast, we began our journey back home to Michigan. We grabbed lunch at Chick-fil-a and then had a quick picnic at Oak Hollow Festival Park in High Point, NC. It's a great spot for a picnic, it also had RV hookups! We stopped for the night at Roadside Park in St. Albans West Virginia- a free campground next to the Kanawha River. The boys enjoyed playing at the playground and then we went back into the sprinter van to watch a couple shows before bed.
Sunday July 27th we finished our drive to MI in the afternoon and though trips are always fun, its also nice to be home too!
On these bigger trips especially, we like to try a few things to see what works for us and share our favorites, which we will do below!
With all of the travelling we wanted to keep the kids busy and entertained, some of these are:
Crayola Color Wonder mess free coloring pages (We had bluey, spidey, and batman) https://amzn.to/4lovJb3
10 best guesses game
Books
Shake and Reveal Science cards by lakeshore learning.
Now we haven't used the van in a while and as expected sometimes when camping their can be little bugs around. Instead of wanting to use bug spray constantly with the kids, we decided to try an essential oil diffuser instead. We have found this to be helpful. Though it does not completely eliminate all bugs, it absolutely seemed to help reduce them and as a bonus it smelled nice! We may experiment with other oils in the future, but for this trip we used a mixture of:
Lavender
Eucalyptus
Peppermint
Orange
The link for the essential oils we used is right here! https://amzn.to/3IS9oF4
The diffuser is battery operated (easy to move around) and charges via USB-C. It was easy to reload and uses standard bottles. We also liked its adjustability with duration and frequency.
And it fits well in a cup holder! Our diffuser is a waterless type, which does not add additional humidity which is important for small spaces, like a van. https://amzn.to/458zoDt
Am I the only person who gets annoyed by travel bottles for toiletries and not remembering what is in each bottle? With kids you have more travel toiletries, making it even harder to remember what's in all the bottles even if they are colored. Before this trip- I used my vinyl cutter to cut permanent vinyl stickers to label what's in each container- and it worked out great!! These permanent vinyl stickers withstood the heat of the shower, and being submerged into water. I had no issues at all. Maybe I should sell them? https://amzn.to/478h2VP
As I've gotten older, I have realized I would benefit from a travel bag that organized all of our toiletries. I really liked that this organizer bag had a separate zipper pocket for 4 tooth brushes. It had additional pockets for floss, mouth wash, deodorant, sunscreen, aloe, toiletry containers and the best part- It had a hook to hang it up in the bathroom! Having all of our essentials togethers was very nice this trip. Just as I envisioned!
In the past, I would pack medicine with our toiletries and I really didn't like that, so this year I also bought a new medicine bag and really enjoyed having that separate from our toiletries. I kept the medicine bag high up on our dresser so our young children didn't have access to it!
Last year my sister in law Chelsey showed me a life hack for packing for herself and her daughter. She used a 24 pocket shoe organizer. I loved this idea and implemented it this year and it made packing and unpacking a breeze! You start by laying the shirt front side down, then you add shorts or pants on top. If you use pants, you'll want to fold them in half first then you'll put underwear and socks with it! Fold both sides of the shirt toward the center and roll it! Repeat this process until you have sufficient outfits for your trip. We used the organizer for swimsuits for the entire family. These organizers hold diapers well also! I'm so glad we packed this way this year. It was a huge time saver!!!!
We also decided to try some RV toilet paper, after dumping our Blackwater tank the last time, took way longer than expected. We have not tried many different brands yet of RV toilet paper, but we gave Scott RV/Boat Toilet paper a chance and we were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't very different from our normal toilet paper. The only noticeable difference was that it was a little smaller though the cost is more, for this specialty toilet paper, at 32 cents per 100 sheets vs 23 cents per 100 sheets for Scott's standard toilet paper, but we plan to continue using it.
Lastly, we upgraded DC's car seat to a Booster Seat. This trip gave us a good opportunity to evaluate the many different configurations this backed booster seat offers. The reason why we choose this booster over others is that it is a backed booster seat but can be used backless. We also really like that this booster seat works with the latch system! We have learned that we prefer the back support configuration so when kiddos take a nap, they are still supported. Another great thing about this booster seat is that the cup holders are fixed!! I can't count the number of times I have put car seat cup holders back in, only for them to removed 2.5 seconds later by our boys. We have been thoroughly pleased with this booster seat and the price point was great! https://amzn.to/4lYqakw
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