Where to Stay in Hilton Head: Sea Pines vs Palmetto Dunes vs Shipyard vs Forest Beach

Where to stay in Hilton Head, SC has no single answer: each of these four areas suits a different week. Each rentals page has the villas, homes and prices for its area.

Three of the four are gated communities, each its own small resort with a beach, golf and tennis. Forest Beach is the exception: ordinary streets along the ocean on either side of Coligny Circle, with no gate and no pass.

Sea Pines and Palmetto Dunes come up together more than any other two names, and neither is the wrong choice. They feel different. Sea Pines fills the southern tip of the island, with Harbour Town, its marina and its lighthouse inside the gate, more than 15 miles of bike trails, the 605-acre Forest Preserve and the Harbour Town Golf Links, home of the RBC Heritage. It feels like a village you bike around.

Palmetto Dunes is mid-island: more than 2,000 acres between the Atlantic and an 11-mile lagoon, with three miles of beach, the Omni and the Hilton Beachfront on the sand, three golf courses and a tennis and pickleball center with 17 clay courts and 24 pickleball courts. It is more of a beach-and-golf resort, and Shelter Cove, with the Kroger and about twenty restaurants, is just across William Hilton Parkway.

• You want Harbour Town, the lighthouse and dinner by the marina

• You plan to bike everywhere, or want the Forest Preserve and its trails

• You are coming for the RBC Heritage or to play Harbour Town Golf Links

• You want a villa or hotel room right on a wide beach

• You want three courses, or tennis and pickleball, behind one gate

• You want to paddle the lagoon, and Shelter Cove’s shops close by

Is Sea Pines or Palmetto Dunes better for a vacation rental? For a family beach week with an oceanfront villa, Palmetto Dunes usually wins. For a week of biking, Harbour Town and a home in the trees, Sea Pines does. Both charge non-guests to enter, so a renter gets a pass with the stay. Pets differ: the Sea Pines resort allows one dog under 50 pounds in its pet-friendly rentals, while the Palmetto Dunes resort allows a dog up to 40 pounds only from October through March. Other rental companies in both set their own rules.

These are typical asking prices for an open 3-bedroom home, with rent, fees and taxes included: half the homes ask more and half less. Shipyard is usually the least expensive of the four, and Sea Pines, Palmetto Dunes and Forest Beach are close to each other in summer. Our Hilton Head vacation rental prices page has every month, size and kind of home.

Shipyard is the smaller gated community between the two, about 800 acres with its Pope Avenue gate near Coligny Plaza. Most of its dozen villa complexes look over fairways and lagoons rather than the ocean, and the beach is reached through a private beach club beside the Sonesta, the community’s oceanfront hotel. There are 27 holes of golf on three nines and the Van der Meer tennis center.

Shipyard vs Palmetto Dunes: Palmetto Dunes has the longer beach and more to do inside the gate, while Shipyard is quieter, closer to Coligny and usually costs less for the same size villa. Beachwalk is the complex closest to the beach. See the Shipyard rentals for the rest.

Forest Beach is the oceanfront on either side of Coligny Circle, and the place to stay if you want to walk to the beach, the shops and dinner without a gate. North Forest Beach runs toward Shipyard and is mostly beach houses on the quieter side. South Forest Beach runs toward Sea Pines’ Ocean Gate and has most of the villa complexes.

Coligny Plaza’s restaurants and shops and Coligny Beach Park are in the middle. There is no public parking on Forest Beach Drive, so a rental with its own parking is the easy way to stay, and the beach park’s lot is free all year. It is busier than the gated communities, especially in summer.

The best area to rent a beach house in Hilton Head depends on what you want most from the house.

• Sea Pines: the oceanside homes along the Atlantic side

• Palmetto Dunes: oceanfront homes on its three miles of beach

• North Forest Beach: beach houses with no gate

• Forest Beach, on either side of Coligny Plaza

• Sea Pines’ South Beach end, with its marina village

• Palmetto Dunes, with three courses and the lagoon

• Sea Pines, with Harbour Town, Heron Point and Atlantic Dunes

• Shipyard, with its homes around 27 holes

• Sea Pines, for its trails and the Forest Preserve

• Hilton Head Plantation, the quieter north end

For the houses themselves, see Sea Pines rental homes, Palmetto Dunes rental homes and oceanfront rentals across the island.

Hilton Head Plantation, a gated community on the north end, is quieter and mostly residential, and Folly Field, mid-island, has villas on the beach with no gate. For hotels, resorts and timeshares as well as rentals, start at our places to stay guide.