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Beach
Last updated
Twenty-two parking spaces, a four-hundred-foot path and the warm shallow runnels that make it a south-end favourite with small children.
Photo: Unbeatable101CC0
Alder Lane is what Coligny would be if you removed the shops, the crowd and nine-tenths of the car park. It sits about a mile southwest along the same south-end shore, off South Forest Beach Drive near the northern edge of Sea Pines, and it has the smallest lot of any Town beach access on Hilton Head Island: roughly twenty-two paid spaces and one accessible bay.
That number governs everything. Twenty-two spaces will not hold a summer morning, so Alder Lane is either a very early beach or a walk-in and cycle-in beach. Most of the people on the sand here have come from the condominiums and rental houses along South Forest Beach Drive rather than from a car. The result is a beach that feels residential in a way Coligny never does, even though they are a fifteen-minute walk apart along the water.
From the lot on Woodward Avenue, a path of roughly four hundred feet leads to the dune crossing. There are restrooms, outdoor showers, drinking fountains and free public Wi-Fi at the access, plus beach matting across the soft sand. Alder Lane is one of the island's five designated swimming areas, so Shore Beach Service lifeguards are stationed here through the beach season of 1 April to 30 September.
The reason to choose it over the alternatives is what the tide does. On a falling tide this stretch drains into a set of shallow runnels and standing pools between the beach and the outer bar, and they hold water that the sun has been working on all morning. Toddlers who will not go near the Atlantic will sit in these for an hour. At dead low water you can walk out to the bar itself over firm ripple-marked sand. Be careful on the way back in: the channel behind a sandbar fills faster than it looks, and the tidal range here runs to six or seven feet.
From US-278 (William Hilton Parkway) take Pope Avenue, continue onto South Forest Beach Drive and turn onto Woodward Avenue; the lot is on the left and the beach path starts across the road.
The path from the lot to the dune crossing runs about four hundred feet, so this is a short carry rather than a Driessen-style expedition.
Walking or cycling in from South Forest Beach Drive is the sensible approach in summer, when twenty-two spaces disappear early. The leisure trail runs the length of South Forest Beach Drive and continues to Coligny Circle, about a mile northeast. The beach itself is walkable to Coligny in fifteen to twenty minutes at low tide.
The Town lists about twenty-two paid spaces plus one accessible bay on Woodward Avenue. This is the smallest public beach lot on the island by a wide margin, and it is roughly a tenth of what Chaplin Community Park offers at Burkes.
Hourly charges run from 1 March to 7 September, enforced daily 7am to 5pm and paid through the Town's parking app. Recent rates have been in the region of three dollars an hour on weekdays and five at weekends. Confirm the current figure before you go.
The honest advice is not to plan a car-based beach day around Alder Lane between June and August. Either be parked before eight, or walk or cycle in from South Forest Beach Drive, or pick Coligny, where the free lot is larger even if the crowd is not to everyone's taste. The residential streets around Woodward Avenue are signed and ticketed, and there is no informal overflow.
Outside the paid season and outside enforcement hours, parking here is free, which makes Alder Lane an excellent choice from October through February when the beach is empty and the lot is not.
The south-end beach shelves very gently, and the six-to-seven-foot tidal range exposes a lot of it. On the ebb, water is left behind in long shore-parallel runnels and in shallow pools where the bar has trapped it. Those pools warm up quickly in summer and are the single best thing about this beach for anyone under six.
At dead low water you can usually walk out to the outer bar over firm, ripple-marked sand. Small fish, crabs and the occasional stranded whelk end up in the pools on the way. This is also the best window for shelling on the south end, although the north end at Fish Haul is better again.
The risk is the flood tide. The channel behind an outer bar fills quietly and quickly, and people who walked out dry come back through waist-deep water. Turn round before low water rather than after it, and do not take small children out to a bar on a rising tide.
Low water shifts about fifty minutes later each day, so check a tide table for the week rather than repeating yesterday's timing.
This is the south end, so the shore faces broadly east and southeast. Sunrise comes out of the Atlantic; sunset happens behind you, over Calibogue Sound and the marsh. For sunset on Hilton Head you want the sound side, not this side.
On a clear day the ships waiting to enter the Savannah River sit on the horizon to the south, low grey rectangles that barely seem to move. Shrimp trawlers work closer in through the season, usually trailed by a cloud of gulls and pelicans.
Bottlenose dolphins are resident year-round in Calibogue Sound just around the corner and come along this shore regularly, most often in the first two hours after sunrise. Brown pelicans fly the line of the breakers in single file most mornings. Between May and October, the marked sea turtle nests behind the dune line are worth a look but not a touch; volunteers stake and screen them at first light.
Sea Pines begins a short walk to the southwest. Non-guests pay a daily gate pass to drive into it, but nothing stops you walking the beach in that direction.
Standard Town beach regulations apply and are enforced. No glass of any kind, no alcohol on any public beach, no fires or fireworks, no shark fishing at any time of year. Holes deeper than twelve inches are prohibited and every hole must be filled before you leave, both for the next person's ankles and for nesting turtles.
Within the designated swim zone, from sunrise to sunset during the April-to-September beach season, fishing, surfboards, boogie boards, ball games and stunt kites are not permitted.
Loggerheads nest here from May into October. The Town's lights-out ordinance runs 1 May to 31 October: if a building is visible from the beach, exterior lights go off at 10pm and blinds close. Flatten sandcastles and take gear home at night; anything left overnight is removed.
Live shells, sand dollars and conchs must be left where they are, which matters more at low tide here than most people expect, because the runnels strand them.
Dogs are barred from the sand between 10am and 5pm from the Friday before Memorial Day through Labor Day, and may be on the beach at any hour under leash or voice control from 1 October to 31 March.
Operators run these trips past Alder Lane, or stop there as part of a longer route. We list what the booking data supports — not everything that mentions the name.
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Bike Rentals
Two adult cruisers, two kids' bikes, helmets and a trailer if you need one, for the whole rental week.
7 days
Saved listing — live prices unavailablePrices checked
Dolphin & Whale Watching
Cruise Broad Creek and Calibogue Sound aboard a covered catamaran while a local captain tracks the island's resident bottlenose dolphins.
1–2 hours
Saved listing — live prices unavailablePrices checked
Sunset Cruises
The island's most-booked evening run, timed so the sun drops behind the Broad Creek marsh grass.
1–2 hours
Saved listing — live prices unavailablePrices checked
Bike Rentals
A single-speed cruiser with a basket, dropped at your door — the island's sixty miles of trails start there.
1 day
Saved listing — live prices unavailablePrices checked
Cultural Tours
Your family, one guide, and the parts of the island's history that the bus route cannot slow down for.
2–3 hours
Saved listing — live prices unavailablePrices checked
Private Sightseeing Tours
Bring your own cooler and pick the route — Broad Creek, the beachfront or a sandbar stop at low tide.
2 hours
Saved listing — live prices unavailablePrices checked
Straight-line distances, so allow more on the road — the island is long and has one main parkway.
Beach
The island's busiest access: free parking, real changing rooms, rental chairs, and a lot that is gone by ten in July.
2–6 hoursFree. Parking is free too, year-round, unlike every other Town beach park.0.8 mi away
Shopping
Sixty-odd shops and restaurants in a low, open-air block across the road from the island's busiest beach — and the parking is free.
1–3 hoursFree to visit, free to park. You pay only for what you buy.0.8 mi away
Neighbourhood
Five thousand acres behind a gate: the pass costs one thing and nearly everything good inside costs another. How it works.
3–8 hoursDaily gate pass charged per two-axle vehicle; activities inside cost extra.2 mi away
Historic site
Oyster-shell concrete walls of a cotton planter's house, with the foundations of the quarters that made it possible a few steps away.
20–45 minutesFree at the site. You still pay the Sea Pines gate pass, charged per vehicle, to enter the community.2.2 mi away
Where this place fits into a day, and the pages that plan one.
Guide hub
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Budget
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Things to do
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Guide
Every beach on Hilton Head is public. Parking is the part that is rationed. Here is what each town lot is like, when it fills, and the one that is free all year.
8 min readMarisa Delgado
About twenty-two paid spaces plus one accessible bay, which makes it the smallest Town beach lot on Hilton Head Island. Hourly charges apply from 1 March to 7 September, enforced 7am to 5pm and paid by app. In summer the lot is usually full by mid-morning and the surrounding streets are signed and ticketed. Walk or cycle in from South Forest Beach Drive, or use Coligny Beach Park, where parking is free.
It is one of the better ones on the south end. On a falling tide the gently shelving sand leaves shallow runnels and pools between the beach and the outer bar, and they hold water that has been warming all morning. Children who will not go into the Atlantic will happily sit in those. Alder Lane is also a designated swimming area with lifeguards from 1 April to 30 September. Watch the flood tide if you walk out to the bar.
About a mile along the shore to the northeast, which is a fifteen to twenty minute walk on firm sand at low tide and rather longer at high water. By road it is a short drive or an easy ride along the leisure trail on South Forest Beach Drive. Many people park free at Coligny and walk down to Alder Lane for the quieter sand, which is a reasonable strategy on a summer weekend.
Regularly, though not on demand. Bottlenose dolphins are resident year-round in Calibogue Sound just around the south end of the island and work this shore in ones and twos, most often within the first couple of hours after sunrise. Look just beyond the first sandbar for a dorsal fin breaking the surface in a slow rolling sequence. Shrimp trawlers passing offshore in season often have dolphins following them.
