Where to stay in Myrtle Beach: the best areas and hotels

This is the Myrtle Beach of the postcards. The Boardwalk runs along the oceanfront past piers, arcades, ice-cream counters and the SkyWheel, the giant Ferris wheel that lights up the seafront after dark. A little further down, the rides of Family Kingdom rattle away within earshot of the waves.

Stay here if you want to park the car and forget about it. The hotels are oceanfront towers, several with their own water parks, lazy rivers and indoor pools for the days the Atlantic misbehaves, and restaurants and entertainment are a stroll away. It is busy, noisy and gloriously tacky in high summer. If that sounds like a threat rather than a promise, look north or south.

Broadway at the Beach is not on the beach at all. It is a huge lakeside complex a short drive inland, with well over a hundred shops, restaurants, bars and attractions, Ripley’s Aquarium among them. In the evenings it is where much of Myrtle Beach ends up.

Hotels around here swap the ocean view for convenience and, usually, a gentler bill. You can stay right by the lake, in a villa resort with its own lazy river, or near the Convention Center a short walk from the action. The sand and the Boardwalk are about five minutes away by car, so this suits visitors who would rather dip into the beach than live on it.

Head north along the oceanfront and the arcades give way to something smarter. Around Grande Dunes and Kingston Plantation the resorts are bigger, the grounds greener and the beach noticeably emptier. This is where Myrtle Beach keeps most of its four-star hotels.

Expect full-service spas, indoor and outdoor pools, waterslides for the children and oceanfront rooms with balconies. Golfers are particularly well served: the Rees Jones-designed Arcadian Shores course is right here, and hotel staff will happily arrange tee times at the many others nearby. The downtown attractions and Broadway at the Beach are only minutes away by car, which is exactly the right distance for a lot of people.

South of the centre, Ocean Boulevard calms down. The hotels are still on the sand, but the neighbours are quieter and the beach has more elbow room. At the very end of the boulevard sits Myrtle Beach State Park, a stretch of protected shoreline and woodland that shows what this coast looked like before the high-rises.

It is the most practical corner of town. Myrtle Beach International Airport is only a couple of miles away, and the shops and restaurants of Market Common, a smart district built on a former air force base, are about five minutes by car. Families do well here, with resorts that lay on lazy rivers, indoor pools and beachside activities.

Keep driving south and the Grand Strand turns into a string of small towns. Surfside Beach is the first, a low-rise family resort a few miles from the airport where the big event is the tide coming in. Beyond it, Murrells Inlet calls itself the seafood capital of South Carolina and has the restaurants to back up the boast.

This is the side of the coast for nature and peace. Brookgreen Gardens and Huntington Beach State Park are close by, and further south still, Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island are properly sleepy, with oceanfront inns where you can hire bikes and kayaks. Myrtle Beach itself is about 15 to 20 minutes back up the road when you want the bright lights.

North Myrtle Beach is its own town, a short drive up the coast, and it feels it. The beach is just as broad, but the mood is more relaxed and the crowd leans towards families who come back every year.

The best resorts sit right on the ocean, some with elaborate pool complexes of lazy rivers, swim-up bars and cabanas. A mile inland the Intracoastal Waterway slides past marinas and waterside restaurants. Barefoot Landing, the outlet shops and Alligator Adventure are all close, and golf courses are everywhere you look.