Gullah Heritage Trail Tours, Hilton Head

• Leaves from: Coastal Discovery Museum, 70 Honey Horn Dr
• Tour: Narrated bus tour, about 2½ hours with a beach stop
• Price: From $25, all ages
• Groups: Private and group tours by request

Gullah Heritage Trail Tours shows visitors the Hilton Head that was here before the resorts. Its guides are Gullah, born and raised on the island before the bridge connected it to the mainland in 1956, and many descend from the freed people who bought land here after the Civil War. The tour rides through the island’s Gullah family neighborhoods and tells their story from the inside: how families farmed, fished and built churches and schools, and how they have held on to their land as the island grew around them. Emory Campbell, a Hilton Head native and one of the leading voices on Gullah culture, oversees the tours.

What You See on the Heritage Tour

• Gullah family compounds: the clusters of related households that still make up neighborhoods like Spanish Wells, Jonesville and Stoney.

• Mitchelville: the historic marker for the freedmen’s town founded in 1862, now Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park.

• The old landing and schoolhouse: the debarkation point islanders used before the bridge, and a one-room schoolhouse.

• Plantation ruins: tabby ruins from the plantation era, told from the side of the people who were enslaved there.

• A beach stop: 15 to 20 minutes at a public beach boardwalk, with the history of beaches that were once open only to Black islanders.

Booking, Groups and Where to Meet

Tours leave from the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn, 70 Honey Horn Drive, just off William Hilton Parkway near the Cross Island Parkway. The public tour books online with live availability. Families, schools, reunions and church groups can book private tours, and the company also arranges group trips to Penn Center on St. Helena Island and to Charleston; ask at tourinfo@gullaheritage.com or call (843) 681-7066 on weekdays. For the bigger picture of the culture, the language, the food and the other places to visit, read our guide to Gullah Geechee culture on Hilton Head, and every other operator on the island is in our directory of Hilton Head activity companies.