Hunting Island State Park

Hunting Island is a barrier island given over almost entirely to the park, and it looks like nowhere else in the Carolinas — palmettos and live oaks draped in Spanish moss growing right down to the sand, a maritime forest thick enough to feel tropical, and a lagoon and salt marsh behind it. The 1875 lighthouse can be climbed for a view over the whole island. The most striking feature is the boneyard beach at the north end, where erosion has killed and toppled the forest and left bleached trunks standing in the surf; the island is genuinely moving, and storms rearrange it. Loggerhead turtles nest here in summer, and the birding through the marsh is first rate.