Report From the OP, June 22. 2026

Mrs. Freeholder and I recently made a week-long trip to the Redneck Rivera, Myrtle Beach, SC. This was, to the extent such a thing is possible, a budget trip. We took the RV, stayed at Myrtle Beach State Park and did the majority of our own cooking. We did eat out twice, once at a Myrtle Beach Pelicans game and a second time at the local location of a national chain, where we had some gift cards that reduced the cost substantially. This helped make up for the gas, which was about $160 each way. Tow Beast has yet to learn how to diet, despite 25 years of attempted education.

This being our first beach trip in several years, I was interested in observing the local economy. Myrtle Beach is a place where money tends to flow freely, so signs of even small reductions in consumer spending has a big impact and may be an indicator of things to come. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that I saw a number of things that may not bode well for the future.

We made our trip a Saturday-to-Saturday thing, as so many do. It’s just nice to have a day to catch up on laundry and recover from the vacation. I didn’t need it so much when I was younger, but it was really nice this time.

The first thing I noticed was on the drive down. This time of year, you normally see a pretty obvious flow of RVs and other vehicular traffic toward the coast. The roads are set up to facilitate this. While there was enough RV traffic to be noticed, it was substantially below what I would have expected. Other vehicular traffic wasn’t really obvious at any point on our route in. There was traffic, but it was mostly South Carolina plates. The last time I saw this was on a visit immediately after a hurricane. It felt a little strange.

The lack of traffic hits businesses along the routes. I noted that a large BBQ joint that is usually quite busy all afternoon looked almost empty. When I stopped for gas, I didn’t have to wait in line at the station. I didn’t even see any speed traps, and that’s really odd. I did note that many of the roads have been recently paved or are in the process of re-paving.

On arriving, I was unsurprised to see the campground almost totally full. It usually is during the season and has been that way pretty much forever. It’s a reasonably nice facility and the park has a mile of beach reserved for patrons of the park. Those of us staying in the RV portion of the park get access as a part of the fee, and day visitors are a reasonable $8/day or $99/year. Given the price of real estate, most residents don’t live within a short distance of the beaches, and this is a great way to get access with good parking, a pier, restrooms, picnic shelters and a relatively uncrowded stretch of beach. Occasionally your tax dollars are well spent.

Our trip to the grocery store Saturday evening was a bit odd. I’m used to seeing a grocery store be reasonably busy at that time, but this one wasn’t. It’s in a good location and doesn’t appear to have much competition. Prices were within a reasonable amount of what we’re used to at home. What shoppers there were seemed to be mostly locals.

Or shopping was limited to hitting both of the local Goodwill stores. The docs have put me on a GLP-1 (Mounjaro, if it matters) and the weight is melting away. I’m out of 40″ waist pants and 3XL shirts and almost into 34″ pants and XL shirts. In the last couple of months, I’ve nearly turned over my entire wardrobe, and replacing it at retail is prohibitively expensive, especially with the knowledge that I’ll be doing it again soon. So, Goodwill. $5 for a pair of pants or a shirt. Go to the ones in affluent neighborhoods and you’ll get nice stuff. I’ve got a crapload of brands like Dockers, Nautica, Calloway, Footjoy, Greg Norman, and so on. Some of the stuff has been brand new, with the tags still on. Yeah, I used to spend that kind of retail money on clothes, but those days are gone. Mrs. Freeholder says I’m channeling my inner Mother. Mom was an inveterate bargain shopper. I guess that was the Great Depression business in her. As they say, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Anyway, the stores were full of clothes and “home goods”. Not so full of shoppers on a Sunday afternoon. As you would expect, nearly all the shoppers appeared to be locals. I grabbed a couple of decent stacks of shorts and shirts. I should be good for the rest of summer, even if I drop that next size.

RV dealerships had plenty of new stock, no visible used stock and no visible customers. Ditto the couple of car dealers we went by.

As best I could tell, restaurant business was on the slow side. When we went out the places were almost full, but no/very short lines. Definitely unusual for the beach.

There were more empty commercial storefronts than I can remember seeing. Not so many that it looked like the place was being abandoned, but again, there were more than I’m used to seeing.

That’s about it. We mostly sat on the beach and read or listened to books, podcasts or music. I honestly wasn’t ready to come home, but cats and GrandThings required us. Might try to go back soon if we can work out all the moving pieces.

Out here.