Charleston

It's not really up for debate: the best thing about a weekend is Charleston is the simple art of walking around. Centuries-old churches, historic homes and twisting oaks line these fair streets, and every now and again you'll stumble on a secret garden behind a swirling, wrought-iron fence, or an alleyway of cobblestones made from the ballast that kept 18th-century ships upright. Mind your step, though, there are uneven bricks and sidewalks in some areas that have been known to have pedestrians dancing 'the Charleston shuffle.'

Part of a visit to Charleston is reckoning with the large role that slavery played in the development of the city. A tour at the McLeod Plantation on James Island lends keen insight into what the lives of enslaved people were like on an upper-middle-class plantation, where the planters were constantly trying to keep up with the Middletons, the Draytons and the Pinckneys. It's a crucial sight for understanding antebellum and Reconstruction Era South Carolina.

Dolphins may leap out of the water next to your ferry as it nears the artificial island home of Fort Sumter, the fortification that made history when the first shots of the Civil War rang out over it. Many a visitor's heart jumps, too, not because the fort is so impressive (it's not), but because the stories told on this journey, about the nation's most devastating conflict, are incredibly moving. The multi-layered Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island is another fascinating piece of the monument.

In preparing for Charleston's enchanting restaurant scene, you may want to pack some clothes a size too large. Because when you're running around trying to devour all the fried green tomatoes, collards, BBQ, oysters, pimento cheese, buttermilk biscuits, mac 'n' cheese and fresh seafood that can fit in your gullet, the last thing you'll want to be thinking about is fitting into tight jeans or a minidress. And unlike most of the rest of the state, Charleston's got international options, too: Tuscan, Vietnamese, Lebanese, you name it.

Between the brick walls of the Old Slave Mart Museum, you'll read a deed of sale for human beings, see the shackles that were used to bind their limbs and hear the voices of former slaves telling their stories. The structure itself is the former slave auction facility called Ryan's Mart, once the busiest trading post for enslaved African Americans on the eastern seaboard. It's an important but difficult museum for many, and tissues are available for those who need them.

The abodes of Charleston's wealthiest denizens (and the people they kept as slaves) have in many cases been meticulously preserved and turned into museums. Today, those homes offer fascinating glimpses into life in the 18th and 19th centuries, and touring them is nothing short of transportive. You can visit where George Washington once stayed (the Heyward-Washington House), wander in lavish spaces where wealthy plantation owners entertained company and compare it all with the restored but still-shabby slave quarters hidden away in the bowels of the homes, or out back.

As you bounce down the street aboard an old-timey carriage tour, with the clippity-clops of the horses' hooves echoing off the historic homes on either side of you, you'll swear you have time-traveled. In an often booming, Southern drawl, your tour guide and carriage driver will regale you with stories of old Charleston, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and all the other disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, fires) that befell this scrappy, gorgeous city. It's a very Charleston experience – and don't worry, the horses are treated superbly.

A visit to the gorgeous Ashley River plantations is an immersion in antebellum life, and each of the three properties has something remarkable to offer. Magnolia is a crowd-pleaser for its swamp tour, wild gardens and petting zoo. Drayton Hall, which has gained a new visitor center, offers a 'preserved as found' plantation home that's older than the US. Middleton Place is the stuff of fairy-tales, with lovingly manicured French gardens and woodlands. All the sights offer tours that discuss slavery and in some cases the slave quarters themselves.

A trip through Charleston can be quite the bacchanalia, if you're into that kind of thing. Local breweries and distilleries, such as Holy City Brewing, dot the northern part of the peninsula and King St, and all of them offer some kind of flight or tasting that involves sample after sample of deliciously intoxicating ales, lagers, sours, ciders, vodkas, whiskeys, Amaros and pretty much any other fermented concoction you can think up. It's also definitely worth the trip over to Wadmalaw Island to visit Firefly Distillery, the home of sweet-tea vodka.

When visiting Charleston, do not underestimate the importance of getting out on the water. Because if you haven't skidded out around the Morris Island lighthouse, communed with dolphins and cruised by Fort Sumter, you haven't done it right. The most fun (and affordable) option is to befriend a local boat owner, but if your trip is too short or you're too antisocial to pull that off, a sunset harbor cruise isn't a terrible idea. If all else fails, the Fort Sumter Boat Tour will get you on the water.