Before the travel trade magazines began naming Hilton Head Island the No. 1 vacation island in America, there was a different number that we found remarkable. Year after year, studies told us that 40% of Hilton Head Island visitors were coming back for more. Return trips make up a huge proportion of the people who choose this for their well-earned and sought-after vacation. Yes, the visitor satisfaction surveys said that more than 90% of visitors were happy with their vacation here. Yet 40% voted with their next vacation, by entrusting it to the many pleasures of our sea island on the Carolina coast.

Making the Island Your Own

The sense of personal ownership that comes with a Hilton Head Island vacation stems to a certain extent from the size and shape of the place. Without wasting words, people say it is perfect. Large enough to offer everything they might like to do, in a variety that pleases ever member of a family or a foursome or a reunion or a romantic getaway or a set of lifelong friends. And yet small enough somehow to feel “know-able.” Even after their first visit, folks tell us they felt they had carved out a place of their own, that they had begun putting together their own collection of inside knowledge.

Locating Without Limitation

The truly experienced among our many guests – and the many neighbors here who began as visitors and became residents – tell us that their version of Hilton Head Island is built on the place where they decided to stay.

A yachtsman might point to Shelter Cove. A beach lover might say Port Royal. A golfer might point to the North End for easy reach of our 32 courses. A tennis player is almost sure to say Sea Pines, named one of the top two tennis locations in America for the abundance and quality of its courts.

The true insider, visitor, or resident who has perfected the art of enjoyment here will tell you that each of these choices is limited. Being based on a particular interest, the locale ends up shaping every experience and slanting it toward a particular version of Hilton Head Island.

A far better approach, they say, is to select a place to stay that puts you in easy reach of everything.

More than More

Midway from the Yacht Basin to the Beach Club, a bike ride’s distance from the Forest Preserve, on the fairways of one of the three storied Sea Pines golf courses, and in hailing distance of the legendary Sea Pines Tennis Club, we are told that Swallowtail offers the finest answer of all for where to make the home-base of your vacation. From here, they say, the version of Hilton Head Island that you experience is the total of all those appeals and interests.

There’s a reason for that. Swallowtail was part of the original plan for America’s favorite vacation island, and this privileged position puts us – and you – in the center of it all.