Having fun in the US of A!

Today I have my sweet friend from Southern Living, Our Way! She's going to tell you how to have fun, at home, meaning not across the ponf, in the good ole US of A.
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Hi, y'all! I'm Alexa from Southern Living, Our Way, taking over for dancy-pants Helene while she parties it up in Europe.

Jealousy doesn't begin to cover my feelings about that, so let's just move right along to a vacation that's a little more doable for us “normal” {read: not-as-cool-as-Gangsta-Lene} people. Ever heard of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina? Ya know, the one with the beach and the palm trees and the Ohioans who take over every summer? I mean, these stickers exist for a reason…

Juuuuust kiiiiidding, Ohio friends! Well, I'm not really, because there are more Ohio tourists in HHI than anywhere I've ever seen, but we love and accept ya nonetheless. Oh yeah, did I mention I am actually a {former} Hilton Head Island local? Ya see, what had happened wasssss, I was born and raised in Tennessee, and my family vacationed on Hilton Head every single summer, sometimes for weeks at a time. At some point, my dad up and decided he was already a Local and would tell people as much, if they had the nerve to call us lowly island tourists. On our summer vacation there when I was 15 years old, just before I started my junior year of high school, my parents asked my brother and me how we felt about actually becoming locals. They'd already planned to retire on the island one day, so why not just go ahead and get a head start, right? You can't really blame us for wanting this view to be just a few miles from our front porch.

And I'll be honest, the best part of being a HHI local is how funny people's reactions are when they find out the island has actual inhabitants. I know, it's a super novel concept that someone has to be around to run that grocery store you hit up to stock your condo fridge, and that an island vacation destination has a real school with real students and real teachers and real football games. Guess what? The island actually has FOUR of those! If you've been to Hilton Head, you probably know about Sea Pines Plantation. But did ya know there's a school in the plantation?

The proof is in the pom-poms, y'all. {And I also dug through the grizzly archives of photos of me from high school to find that gem. Woof and you're welcome.} While living full-time on a tiny island isn't always rainbows and unicorns, and going in public looking like dog poo absolutely guarantees you'll see a dozen people you know, I feel beyond blessed to have lived in such a beautiful place that most people can only see one week a year on their vacation. Eight years after trading in our Vol-orange Tennessee life for palm trees and sandy Saturdays, my parents still live on the island, and I even up and married the handsome love of my life there last year!

Since we're only living four hours away in Charlotte, NC right now, we visit Hilton Head as often as possible. You can't exactly blame us! If you've never been to Hilton Head Island, I highly recommend you book your next beach trip there and experience all the beauty it has to offer. And of course, as a ~~former but I still consider myself a~~ local, I'd love to give you some island recommendations!

I hope you'll head on over to my blog and say hello! Though don't get too jealous when you find out that after living on HHI for two years, I continued the beach fun by spending four years in college in fellow-vacation-destination Wilmington, NC.