Hilton Head Island Map: Areas, Beaches and Roads

Most visitors stay along the ocean side, between Sea Pines and Folly Field: Sea Pines, Forest Beach and Coligny, Shipyard, Palmetto Dunes and the Folly Field resorts. The north end and the land along Broad Creek and Skull Creek are mostly gated residential communities. Several, including Sea Pines, Shipyard and Palmetto Dunes, have a gate: renters and hotel guests get a pass, and day visitors to Sea Pines pay a gate fee. All of them are compared on Hilton Head neighborhoods.

The island’s whole Atlantic side is beach, about 12 miles of it, and every stretch is public up to the high-tide line. What changes is how you reach it: the Town’s beach parks (the sand-colored dots on the map) have parking, restrooms and showers, while the resort communities’ beach accesses are for people staying inside. Our printable Hilton Head beach map shows every public beach access point with its parking, and lot rates are on Hilton Head parking.

Hilton Head’s golf courses sit inside its communities, which is why there are clusters of them on any map of Hilton Head golf courses: three in Sea Pines, three in Palmetto Dunes, three in Hilton Head Plantation. Harbour Town Golf Links, home of the RBC Heritage, is at the south tip by the lighthouse; Shipyard and the Palmetto Dunes courses are mid-island near the beach; Oyster Reef and Dolphin Head are up at the north end. Every course, with tee times and scorecards, is on Hilton Head golf courses; Bluffton and the mainland add more than 20 more.

Three places do most of the work on a tourist map of Hilton Head. Harbour Town, inside Sea Pines, is the red-and-white lighthouse and the marina; a Harbour Town map starts at the Sea Pines gates, so see the Sea Pines map to find it. Coligny is the beach town at the end of Pope Avenue. Shelter Cove is the harbour and shopping center mid-island, and the hub of the free Breeze trolley. For a restaurant map, our Hilton Head dining guide groups places by area, and the downtown Hilton Head map pins everything around Coligny.

There is one road onto the island: US 278, over the bridges from Bluffton. From I-95, take exit 8 and follow US 278 east through Bluffton to the bridges. Once over, the road splits. The Cross Island Parkway (US 278) is the fast way to the south end: it crosses Broad Creek and, by way of Palmetto Bay Road, reaches Sea Pines Circle, by Sea Pines and Coligny. William Hilton Parkway (US 278 Business) is the long way round past the airport, Folly Field, Palmetto Dunes and Shelter Cove, and meets the parkway again at Sea Pines Circle. Pope Avenue runs from the circle to Coligny and the beach.

The Savannah airport is about 39 miles from the bridges, roughly 50 minutes; the island’s own airport is just off William Hilton Parkway at the north end. Turn-by-turn drives from Savannah, Charleston, Atlanta and Charlotte are on getting to Hilton Head, and the ways to get around once you’re here are on getting around Hilton Head.

Where is Hilton Head, South Carolina, on the map? On the state’s southern tip, in Beaufort County, just across the Georgia line from Savannah (about an hour’s drive) and about two hours’ drive south of Charleston. It is one of the Lowcountry’s sea islands, with Port Royal Sound to the north, Calibogue Sound and Daufuskie Island to the west, and the Atlantic to the east. Bluffton, across the bridges, is where most of the year-round workforce lives. For the day trips within reach, see day trips from Hilton Head.