Harbour Town Hilton Head Island

Harbour Town is the marina village at the south end of Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island, SC: a yacht basin ringed by shops and restaurants, with the red-and-white Harbour Town Lighthouse at its edge and Calibogue Sound beyond. However you spell it (Harbour Town, Harbor Town, Harbortown or Harbourtown), it is the same place, and locals shorten the island to HHI. Harbour Town is open to the public: anyone can visit, and drivers who are not property owners, resort guests or renters pay the Sea Pines visitor gate fee of $10 per car for the day.

Gate fee

$10 per car for the day

Parking

Free in the Harbour Town lot, 140 Lighthouse Road

No fee once inside

The pier, the Liberty Oak, the playground and the summer concerts

Lighthouse tickets

$8, daily from 10 a.m.; 5 and under free

Shops open

Most at 10 a.m. daily

Getting Into Harbour Town and Parking

Drive in through the main Sea Pines gate on Greenwood Drive, or the Ocean Gate on North Sea Pines Drive, and buy the day pass there; the guest pass office page has the details. Follow Lighthouse Road to the village. The main Harbour Town lot is beside the Gregg Russell playground, about 250 yards from the lighthouse, and parking there is free. On summer evenings and concert nights it fills, so come early, or leave the car behind: in summer the free Sea Pines trolley runs an evening route from the Greenwood Drive stop near the main entrance to Harbour Town about every 20 minutes, 4 to 10 p.m.

Day visitors can’t ride a bike through the gate, so bring bikes in on the car; there are bike racks around the village. One way to get the $10 back: the resort refunds the gate pass when you spend more than $30 at one of its own restaurants, which in Harbour Town include the Quarterdeck and Harbourside.

A Walk Around Harbour Town

Everything in the village is a few minutes’ walk from the main lot, and the map below shows the route. Start at the Gregg Russell Harbour Town Playground, with its tree house built around a live oak. Walk toward the water to the Liberty Oak, the 300-year-old tree the yacht basin was redrawn to save, with Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser’s grave at its foot. From there the shops run along the north side of the basin toward the lighthouse. Past the lighthouse, walk out on the covered Harbour Town pier to watch the boats and look for dolphins, then climb the lighthouse’s 114 steps for the view over Calibogue Sound. It closes at 6 p.m. from November through January and around sundown the rest of the year. Dinner is all around you on the way back.

When to Visit Harbour Town

Mornings are the quiet time: breakfast at the Harbour Town Bakery & Café, the docks before most shops open at 10 a.m., and the first climbs of the day. Late afternoon into sunset is the village at its best and its busiest, with the pier full for the sunset photo and parking at its hardest. Rain doesn’t ruin a visit: the lighthouse climb is indoors, its walls on the way up are a small museum of island history, and the shops are a few steps apart.

The calendar changes the village too. On most summer weeknights from late May through August, Gregg Russell’s free sing-along concerts fill the lawn under the Liberty Oak, 8 to 9:30 p.m. From the tree lighting on Thanksgiving weekend until New Year’s Day, Harbour Town Lights fills the village with holiday lights that are free to walk. Each April, the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage is played at Harbour Town Golf Links, whose 18th hole finishes beside the lighthouse; that week, most fans come in on the tournament’s shuttle.

Harbour Town With Kids

The playground’s tree house, a Gregg Russell concert, and ice cream at Cinnamon Bear Country Store, open until 10 p.m., make an easy family evening. By day, the Pirates of Hilton Head ship and the dolphin cruises leave from the basin, children 5 and under climb the lighthouse free, and Hilton Head Toys is in the row behind the lighthouse.