Harbour Town has a little bit of everything – shops, restaurants, boats, water activities, a playground, a lighthouse, a golf course. There is something for everyone there. Over the years we have been there to eat, shop, play, and even take a super fun pirate cruise with Pirates of Hilton Head back when the boys were younger.
Located in Sea Pines, one of the largest plantations on Hilton Head, Harbour Town is a top destination for visitors to Hilton Head. If you are not staying in Sea Pines, there is a fee to get in – as well as a long wait to pay the fee. As you approach the gated entrance to Sea Pines, visitors need to get into the far right lane to purchase their $6 entry pass. (Residents and resort guests can go through the quicker line to the left and show their pass for free entrance.)
Once inside Sea Pines, you can follow the signs to the golf course, the stables, Harbour Town, or any of a number of points of interest in the plantation. Harbour Town can get extremely busy and finding a parking space can be difficult. There are two larger lots, as well as several smaller ones that all seem to end in a dead-end that requires a difficult u-turn to get back out if you aren’t lucky enough to find a space. We drove around for about 15 minutes (and 3 dead-end u-turns) before finally finding a spot.
One of the first things you will see as you approach Harbour Town is an incredible oak tree dating back to 1715. There are several stunning oak trees around Harbour Town. Centuries old, their huge limbs seem to defy gravity as they grow low and horizontal, beckoning the inner-tree climber in both kids and adults alike. People wait on line to take family photos on the branches of these beautiful moss covered trees.
There is also a great fenced in playground nearby with several other magnificent oak trees to climb. In addition to swings and slides and typical playground fare, it features an amazing tree house built around one of the enormous oak trees. Kids of all ages enjoy exploring the many levels of the tree house. The whole playground is well designed with quality equipment, and we’ve enjoyed seeing the improvements and additions year to year over our decade of visits.
The oak trees and the playground are located between the parking lot and Harbour Town itself. If you can finally get your tree-climbing, playground-playing kids past all of that, you will enter the heart of Harbour Town. Shops and restaurants abound here and you can find pretty much anything you would ever want to eat or purchase.
We made this trip primarily to climb the lighthouse so we headed there next. The Harbour Town Lighthouse was built in 1970. Its construction was privately funded and while it certainly aids ships’ navigation into Harbour Town’s marina, its primary purpose was more aesthetic. A 90 foot candy striped octagonal column, it was designed to be a focal point for Sea Pines Plantation and has indeed become Hilton Head’s most recognizable landmark.
Interestingly, when we visited, the lighthouse’s iconic red stripes were actually covered in plaid. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the RBC Heritage (the PGA tournament held at Harbour Town Golf Links), the red stripes were covered with 3,400 square feet of vinyl plaid stickers. The tournament took place in April but the plaid will remain on the lighthouse until the fall.
The lighthouse has a store on the first floor, which sells both lighthouse memorabilia and tickets to climb the Harbour Town Lighthouse. It is $4.50 per person to climb to the top. A cleverly designed museum is housed on the many levels of the lighthouse, giving an informative history of the island starting with the American Indians. The steps to each level in the lighthouse step you through the history of the island. Covering everything from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to the Gullah culture of the freed slaves to the construction of the swing bridge that brought about the advent of modern-day Hilton Head, the museum packs in a lot of information. I was sorry that the boys didn’t take more time to learn about the island. While they did gaze at some of the pictures and comment on things here and there, they were mostly focused on getting to the top for the views (and bragging rights for the first one there).
And the views were definitely worth it. Looking out in various directions, you could see the marina, the golf course, the pier, and Harbour Town itself. It was truly a gorgeous view no matter which direction you looked.
There is another store at the top of the lighthouse which sells more kid-friendly souvenirs. It was hot at the top despite several fans, so we didn’t linger long. We did not buy anything there but did make flattened pennies on the way down at one of the 4 pressed penny machines. (These are great cheap souvenirs that my boys have been collecting for years.)
After practically running all 114 steps to the top and back, we decided the boys had earned an ice cream break. There seem to be at least 2 dozen places to get ice cream in Harbour Town. Literally. Every other store either was an ice cream store or also sold ice cream. Somehow we always seem to gravitate towards Cups & Cones, probably because it is at the foot of the lighthouse. But we had a nice cool treat from there before heading back to Palmetto Dunes.
Overall, we always love our visits to Harbour Town. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of having to pay to enter a place where you are only going to spend money. Six dollars just to enter Sea Pines in order to buy things at its shops and restaurants kind of irks me. It’s like charging an entrance fee to the mall. That being said, we have been multiple times and always enjoy ourselves there so it clearly isn’t keeping us from coming back.
If you are willing to foot the $6 entrance fee and then invest some time looking for parking, you should enjoy yourselves here. The playground is wonderful and free, as is walking around to see the boats on the pier and in the marina and the views of the ocean and golf course. Like the rest of Hilton Head you can do as little or as much as you want in Harbour Town. There are plenty of opportunities to do adventurous things like rent jet skies or take an alligator tour, but it’s also just a neat place to walk around if that is more your speed.
