CHARLESTON, one of the finest-looking cities in the US. The Charleston port serving the rice and cotton plantations. It became the region's dominant town, a commercial and cultural center which right from the start had a mixed population, with immigrants including French, Germans, Jews, Italians and Irish, as well as the English majority. One-third of all the nation's slaves came through Charleston, sold at the market on the riverfront and bringing with them their ironworking and building skills.Charleston is known as The Holy City due to the prominence of churches on the low-rise cityscape, particularly the numerous steeples which dot the city's skyline, and for the fact that it was one of the few cities in the original thirteen colonies to provide religious tolerance to the French Huguenot Church

Charleston also has many resort barrier islands like Seabrook and Kiawah.  Located just 22 miles south of Charleston, these islands are private and owned by their residents.

 Kiawah Island Golf Resort's Ocean Course hosted the 1991 Ryder Cup matches, the 2007 Senior PGA Championship and is scheduled to host the 2012 PGA Championship.Charleston annually hosts Spoleto Festival USA, a 17-day art festival featuring over 100 performances by individual artists in a variety of disciplines

Isle of Palms is a barrier island on the South Carolina coast less than 20 minutes from Charleston. It is home to the world-famous Wild Dunes Resort, which offers convention facilities with restaurants, a fitness center, tennis courts and two championship golf courses. Folly Beach is located about 15 miles south of Charleston and is known as Charleston's only fishing pier.

The Civil War started on Charleston's very own National Monument, at Fort Sumter in the harbor. Fire swept through the city, destroying large chunks, in 1861; more damage was inflicted when it was taken by Union troops in February 1865.  As the upcountry industrialized, capital steadily deserted the city, and it only really recovered when World War II restored its importance as a port and naval base. Since then, a steady program of preservation and restoration – not helped by the devastation of Hurricane Hugo in 1989 – has made tourism Charleston's main focus. Despite the crowds, however, it has kept its atmosphere, while maintaining all the energy and life of a real, working town. The gullah traditions of the sea islands are a tangible presence here, too: "basket ladies" weave their sweetgrass baskets all around the market and near the post office, and many people – black and white – speak the distinctive gullah dialect.

Not far from Charleston is the location of Fort Moultrie, which was instrumental in delivering a critical defeat to the British in the American Revolutionary War, and Fort Sumter, the reputed site of the "first shot" of the American Civil War. Patriot's Point, located across the river in nearby Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, is also home to the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown as well as several other naval vessels. There are also several former plantations in the area, including Boone Hall Plantation, Drayton Hall, Magnolia Plantation, and Middleton Place. The Charleston Tea Plantation is located just south of the city on Wadmalaw Island, and is a true working tea farm. Charleston's premier art museum is the Gibbes Museum of Art, one of the country's oldest art organizations and home to over 10,000 works of fine art. Also the Charleston Museum was the first Museum in the Americas. Other attractions include the South Carolina Aquarium, the Audubon Swamp Garden, Cypress Gardens, and Charles Towne Landing which is also the original settlement area of Charles Towne and the birthplace of what is now considered modern Charleston.