Find The Best Coastal Golf Communities in South Carolina with 'Discovery Tours'

So you're looking to move to South Carolina, and you know you want to live on the links. In fact, you chose South Carolina specifically because it provides some of the best coastal golf communities in the United States.  But of the many such places, how can you figure out which one is the right one for you?

The answer is simpler than you might think: it involves going on vacation. Many coastal golf communities would love to show you all they have to offer on your vacation. Try vacationing by doing a 'Discovery Tour'.

A discovery tour is basically a package that includes a 3-day, 2-night (or sometimes 2-day, 1-night) stay in one luxury hotels or cottage along with a few rounds of golf at a top-tier championship golf courses. You pay a reduced rate for all of this, and in exchange you agree to take a tour of a model home on that golf community and hear all of the reasons why you'd love it.

Some of you are starting to shift about nervously, because you're remembering the last time you went to Hawaii or Cancun and had to sit through a five-hour, high-pressure sales pitch for some time share.  Don't worry; this is not that. The folks who run these coastal golf communities want you to remember the time with them fondly in hopes that you'll consider purchasing a home there. They don't want to scare you off.

The best part about these discovery tours is that they're not on anyone's schedule -- the golf community owners are happy to have you any time of year, any time of week. So a clever and avid golfer can arrange to string a few such tours in a row, getting good looks and information on several of the most beautiful coastal golf communities (and playing on some amazing links at the same time). 

If you choose to go this route and you're actually considering moving onto one of the properties, make sure you cover the basics in your tour. Play the course, eat at the clubhouse, make sure you won't be paying for amenities you won't use, and get a tour of the kind of home you'll actually be buying. Pro Tip: Make sure the entire grounds get cell reception; it can sometimes get dodgy.

The thing about discovery tours is that you'll rarely come across a travel agent that knows about them -- you'll have to engineer them yourself.  Fortunately, that's as easy as calling the coastal golf communities around South Carolina and simply asking what kind of discovery tours they're hosting. It's a bit more legwork than you might be used to, but it's well worth it.

Heck, if you like golf and you want to come out to South Carolina, it's probably worth it to call around even if you're not planning on eventually living out here.  But if you do want to live in on one of South Carolina's many private coastal golf communities, this is a surefire way of figuring out the best one for you.