Huntington Beach State Park is the Grand Strand's quiet masterpiece — a wide, never-crowded beach and maritime forest in Murrells Inlet, minutes south of the strip. Carmen and Brian call it a hidden gem; the campers who book its sites a year out call it their once-a-year splurge.
The campground
I Love RV Life's tour works from premium site 160: paved full-hookup pads (50/30 amp, water, sewer) under live oaks on the beach side of the loop, waves audible at high tide — and the warning that this small campground near Murrells Inlet fills fast. The full-day film drives the moss-draped entrance road and the causeway, where alligators sun in the freshwater lagoon beside it (Carmen and Brian's tour picks the causeway as the park's best alligator viewing, observation stations on both sides).
The beach and the birds
The beach runs more than two miles toward the jetty with groups spread 40–50 feet apart — hundreds of bird species are recorded here. The Myrtle Moments wild-places documentary puts the park in its regional frame: both oceanfront state parks, Brookgreen's 9,000 acres, and the longleaf and salt-marsh preserves inland, told by the rangers and conservationists who protect them.
The Huntington triangle
A travel writer's conversation and a full Atalaya tour film cover the park's historic half: the Moorish winter home inside the park (a $2-admission walk, also a WWII radar station) and Brookgreen Gardens rising across the highway at the same time — one couple's 1930s building spree that preserved this whole coast.
Sources: the 6 videos on this page, filmed at Huntington Beach State Park; prices as filmed.