The Southern Charm that is Charleston – A Proper Girl’s Weekend Getaway!

Charleston has been on our girls trip list for quite some time now. We love that old-time charm in a city filled with great food, coffee, architecture, etc. The people are so nice and friendly too! We spent a nice long Fall weekend in Charleston and couldn’t ask for better weather.  

Day 1:

We landed bright and early, and were luckily able to check into our hotel, Francis Marion, as soon as we got there! Since it was an old hotel, the bathroom was a little small for four girls, but the bedroom was a good size to accommodate us. The hotel was the perfect distance between downtown and uptown so we were able to walk to a majority of places. After freshening up, we made our way to the first stop of the trip: brunch!  We chose Basic Kitchen because of its diverse menu, beautiful decor and amazing food! We started off with pretty Charcoal Lattes and dove into Avo Toast & Conscious Cowboy. It was the perfect meal to start off our girls trip with!

We then took an uber about 25 min to Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and walked around for a couple hours enjoying all the different flowers and trees.  We were still unsure about some dinner plans so we decided to ask our Uber driver, and we recommend you do the same! They will always have a good sense of where locals go, what tourist places are better to avoid and which ones are a must!  After being one with nature, we decided it was time for a drink. We took another Uber to Palmetto Brewing where we enjoyed a flight and some board games! Between the flight and the couple brews, we were feeling a little beat so we headed back to the hotel for a quick little nap before starting off the night!  We grabbed pre dinner drinks at Prohibition and drank a delicious Cucumber Gimlet. Thanks to one of our friendly Uber drivers, we took his recommendation to eat at O-Ku, one of Charleston’s best sushi restaurants. We ordered the truffle edamame and shrimp salad for the table and indulged in our own sushi rolls as an entree.  Our Uber driver was definitely right – we loved our first dinner in Charleston! We grabbed fun drinks at The Cocktail Club afterwards, which is an exclusive bar that celebs and reality stars have been seen at. Sad for us, we didn’t run into anyone cool. After bar hopping a little more, we decided to call it a night since the bed was calling our names!

Day 2:

Every Sunday, Wildflour Pastry makes the most delicious sticky and cinnamon buns so we made sure to get up at a decent time and make it there before they sold out! They were definitely worth the wait and left us wanting them for breakfast every morning.  Up next on our trip was one of our favorite events: candle making workshop at Candlefish! For $55, you learn all about how to make candles and get to take home 2! The shop has over 100 different scents and we were able to smell about 40 of them in order to choose what kind we wanted to make.  They had almost every scent you could imagine including citrus, floral and cinnamon – just in time for the holiday season! The class was BYOB so you bet we brought our prosecco and OJ with us.  The class took about 1.5 – 2 hrs which left us enough time to explore Rainbow Row before brunch at Husk, one of Charleston’s best restaurants and very hard to get a dinner reservation at but we were able to score a brunch reservation. Between their sangria, grits and salads, we were in a bit of brunch heaven. Next stop was The Charleston City Market that has tons of little shops that sell everything from sweets to jewelry to paintings! We walked around downtown a little more exploring Waterfront Park aka the pineapple fountain before grabbing an Uber to Edmund’s Oast to enjoy Sunday Funday. We headed back to the hotel to change before grabbing pre-dinner drinks at Stars Rooftop.  It’s a great spot to check out the sunset and enjoy some girl time! Our second and last dinner of the trip was at a great pizza spot, Indaco. We just happened to go on their half off bottle of wine night – score! Most of the menu is made to split between the table so we split the burrata, a pasta dish, and a pizza (can you tell we love cheese?). We had such a good meal that we ended up staying there and chatting for most of the night. We then made our way to The Belmont and continued our wine kick while our girlfriends ordered one of their specialties, a homemade pop tart! The one bite of the nutella and banana pop tart we snagged was deadly, but highly recommended.

Day 3:

We slept in a little and got our bags together since we had to check out before beginning the day.  We made our last day in Charleston a walking tour of the things to eat and drink! We started off at Callie’s Hot Little Biscuits where we got a flight of 3 different biscuits including cinnamon and cheddar!  We walked to a cozy coffee shop, Second State Coffee, to grab some tea and coffee (and pet cute puppies) before making our way to 5Church Charleston, a unique restaurant that was previously a Church and with the Halloween decorations, it was the perfect spot to grab a charcuterie board and a glass of wine.  It was such a beautiful sunny day that we just wanted to walk around Charleston and admire the gorgeous houses that have been there for decades. After wandering around a bit, it was time for a mid-day treat at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. We had to get a photo opp but then couldn’t finish our cones fast enough!  Our last stop of our eating/drink tour was Bay Street Biergarten. We were able to sit outside to enjoy the last bit warmth before heading back to the chilly North and had such a blast drinking local brews and consuming yummy pretzels, salad and tater tots!

Break Down (in no particular order):

Breakfast/Brunch

1. Basic Kitchen
2. Wildflour Pastry (esp on Sundays)
3. Callie’s Hot Little Biscuits
4. Second State Coffee

Lunch/Dinner

1. 5Church
2. Indaco
3. O-Ku

Drinks

1. Bay Street Biergarten
2. Edmund’s Oast
3. Cocktail Club
4. The Belmont
5. Prohibition
6. Stars Rooftop
7. Palmetto Brewing

Treats

1. Jenis Splendid Ice Cream
2. Sugar Bakeshop (didn’t make it here but hear it’s amazing!)
3. Christophe Artisan Chocolatier (didn’t make it here but hear it’s amazing!)

Photo Opps

1. Rainbow Row
2. Pineapple at Waterfront Park
3. Magnolia Plantation and Gardens
4. Charleston City Market
5. Calhoun Mansion

Charleston is one of the cutest cities we’ve been to and you’ll never run out of things to do!  You could even plan a trip to Kiawah Island or Savannah from Charleston if you have a couple extra days!

xo A&C