South Carolina
Starting at the Statue of Liberty and winding up at free-wheeling Key West, these almost 2,000 miles of roadway run within earshot—if not sight—of the Atlantic Ocean.
Just beyond the border into South Carolina, you suddenly hit the exuberant mega-tourism of the “Grand Strand,” a conglomeration of resort hotels, amusement arcades, and Coney Island-style Americana that centers on Myrtle Beach, the state’s number-one tourist destination.
South of here things quiet down considerably, as coastal US-17 winds past the lush lowland marshes, passing through historic Georgetown and numerous preserved plantations before reaching Charleston, one of the most gracious and engaging cities in the southern United States.