How to Get to Daufuskie Island from Hilton Head

The public ferry is run by Lowcountry Ferry under a contract with Beaufort County, and it goes between the C.C. Haigh Jr. Boat Landing on Hilton Head and Melrose Landing on Daufuskie. Tickets start at $30 and are one way, so book the return trip as a second ticket. Children 5 and under ride free with a paying adult. You book online on the Lowcountry Ferry site, and the office answers on (843) 422-1597.

Be at the landing 45 minutes before your boat; the gate closes five minutes before it leaves. Each ticket covers one carry-on the size of an airline bag and one personal item, such as a purse. Anything more is cargo, priced from $25, and may travel on the luggage barge, which crosses once a day. A folding wagon no bigger than 35.5 by 19 by 23 inches and under 100 pounds loaded counts as your carry-on, for groceries. Dogs ride on a leash outside the passenger cabin for $25 each, and there is no eating or drinking on board except bottled water.

Island property owners and full-time renters pay less: Beaufort County approves them for a Qualified Discount Rider card, issued by Palmetto Breeze Transit, and their fares are $6, $7 or $10 one way depending on the level. Timeshare owners and short-term renters don’t qualify. Weather or a boat problem can change the schedule, so check the operator’s site on the morning you travel.

Palmetto Breeze, the Lowcountry’s regional bus agency, doesn’t run the ferry or sell its tickets. It only makes the resident cards. You apply online with Beaufort County and upload your documents with the application. The county checks them, which can take up to five business days, and then tells Palmetto Breeze, which emails you a time to pick up the card at its office in Bluffton on a weekday. A lost card costs $25 to replace. Questions about the card go to Palmetto Breeze at (843) 757-5780; tickets and schedules go to Lowcountry Ferry.

Older guides still send you to Buckingham Landing in Bluffton. The public ferry left there in January 2024, when the county’s new contract started, and now leaves from the C.C. Haigh Jr. Boat Landing at 2 William Hilton Parkway, on Pinckney Island just before the last US 278 bridge onto Hilton Head, so you pass it on the way in. Its public fishing pier has a page of its own: C.C. Haigh Jr. fishing pier.

Parking there is free for ferry riders, overnight too, in about 90 spaces. You leave the verification slip from the ferry on your dashboard so staff know the car belongs to a passenger. Neither the county nor the operator is responsible for what you leave in the car.

No car? The free Breeze trolley won’t get you there: it runs between Coligny, Shelter Cove and the mid-island resorts, and Palmetto Breeze’s other buses keep commuter hours for island workers (see Palmetto Breeze routes). The easy way is a cab or an Uber. Yellow Transportation answers around the clock at (843) 686-6666, so book your ride back to meet the boat you return on.

For a Daufuskie Island day trip, most visitors take one of these. Vagabond Cruise leaves Harbour Town, inside Sea Pines, on a narrated trip past the Haig Point Lighthouse and lands at Freeport Marina about 30 minutes later. The morning boat gives you about three hours on the island and the afternoon boat about four and a half. You can reserve a golf cart when you book and pay for it at the Freeport General Store, and guests staying in Sea Pines can bring bikes over free.

Island Head runs from Broad Creek Marina, mid-island on Hilton Head, to Freeport Marina, about 45 minutes each way. It sells a one-way ticket and a round trip with a choice of return times: out at 9 a.m. and back at 4 p.m., out at 11 and back at 6, and in season out at 1 and back at 8. Check in at the white floating office at the end of the marina’s long wooden pier, 30 minutes before you sail.

A water taxi leaves when you do. H2O Sports runs one from the Harbour Town Yacht Basin, a crossing of about 20 minutes, with several departure and return times a day; you check in at the H2O Sports booth by the lighthouse, reservations are required, and they can have a golf cart waiting at their dock on the island. Charter captains on Hilton Head and in Bluffton will also run a private boat across for a group, and that is the way to go if you want to leave after the last scheduled boat.

Haig Point, the private club community on the island’s north end, runs its own ferry from the Haig Point Embarkation center on Hilton Head, just below the Cross Island Parkway bridge. It is for Haig Point residents and their guests only: 18 boats a day between 6:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m., a 25-minute crossing to Haig Point Landing, free parking, and a valet who takes your bags and golf clubs to the house. Golf packages with a round at the Haig Point Club include the crossing.

Freeport Marina, on the Cooper River at 249 Freeport Drive, calls itself the gateway to Daufuskie, and for day visitors it is. The Vagabond and Island Head boats tie up here, and a few steps from the dock are the Old Daufuskie Crab Company, the waterfront restaurant known for its deviled crab and a strong tea cocktail called the Scrap Iron; the Freeport General Store, for snacks, groceries, beer and wine, and the golf-cart desk; a row of small painted rental cottages; and a playground. If you come in your own boat, daily docking is $10 per boat for the whole day, first come, first served. Overnight transient slips are $5 per foot a night and must be reserved on Dockwa (search “Freeport Marina, Daufuskie Island”).

The public ferry does not come here. It docks at Melrose Landing, just past the marina along the same shore, so lunch at Freeport is a short walk from that boat too. Our Daufuskie Island map shows both docks and the roads from them.

There are no rental cars on Daufuskie and many of the roads are unpaved, so visitors get around by golf cart, bike or on foot. Book a cart before you cross, especially in summer and on holidays: the boat operators can reserve one with your ticket, and several island companies deliver to the docks and rental homes; our Daufuskie Island golf cart rentals page compares them. A four-seat cart holds a family for the day; bring a bike on the boat if the operator allows it. For what to see once you are there, start with our Daufuskie Island guide.