Where: Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
When: year-round
If you like: gardens, arts and culture, the outdoors and sports, conservation
Why you should go: While planning one of his sprawling outdoor installations, the British-Australian artist Bruce Munro mentally retraced a walk through Brookgreen Gardens, the 9,127-acre nature preserve that sits between Myrtle Beach and Pawleys Island, South Carolina. “It’s almost like a series of exterior rooms; you go from one garden space to another,” Munro says. “But then there’s this wild pass of the garden that goes beyond the wall out onto a flood plain, among long grasses. There’s a wildness out there, a tension, something magical, like out of a book.”
Munro is just one of the many exhibiting artists who has found joyous creative touchpoints among Brookgreen’s blooming foxgloves, wisteria, and jasmine. The site is home to the country’s largest and most comprehensive collection of American figurative sculpture, all viewable on foot and set within flowering garden nooks, beneath ferny brick archways, and amid curving live oak branches. This spring (through April 20), Brookgreen will mount an exhibition, The Genius of Archer Milton Huntington, which highlights the collection of one of the garden’s founders. The timing is perfectly matched to the peak of the pink azalea bloom in late March and April. And if you miss this exhibition, don’t worry—art, both manmade and natural, abounds.
G&G tip: Flowers aren’t the only fascinating wildlife here. Meander over to the on-site Lowcountry Zoo, where you just might spot a baby otter pup or a rare red wolf in its four-acre enclosed habitat, part of the Red Wolf Saving Animals from Extinction program.
