You can read my 2026 Shelling Diaries Part One HERE and Part Two HERE. Jeff jokingly said we should bring shovels to dig in the whelk graveyard, but then he actually found some decent sand shovels in the garage of our rental house, so it wasn’t really a joke anymore.  We were going to visit that spot again and, this time, we were going to do some serious shelling. The morning was brisk, in the low 50s, so we all bundled up, and I wore my wool socks and wellies.  Packing the boots was a last-minute decision based on last year, when I thought I might get hypothermia walking barefoot on the beach.  Last year, we were at Isle of Palms during an unseasonably cold stretch, but I was not prepared for it.  All I had were swim leggings and tunics, linen dresses, and leggings.  I was cold most of

While we’ve all been getting lots of steps from walking on the beach. Jeff has been the grand champion with over 24,000 steps each day. (I’ve been clocking in 15,000-20,000.)  Since he’s been covering so much ground, we asked him to do some shell reconnaissance for us.  He found some gray olives and whelks for me (he’s redeemed himself from his traitorous act earlier in the week ), and some pink whelks for my mom, but he also found a bountiful stretch of beach we might want to drive to. I have walked that stretch before, when I stayed at Wild Dunes, but there wasn’t much of interest when I made the trek.  This time, though, Jeff said there were a bunch of shells collected around an area where large rocks were arranged to act as a retaining wall to prevent further beach erosion and protect some cottages at risk.

Every year, when I’m sharing our shelling adventures on social media, the same three questions pop up, so I thought I would share the answers all in one place. Where are you shelling?   We are at the Isle of Palms in South Carolina.  We’ve been coming here for Spring Break for several years, and it’s a wonderful area for shelling.  I’ve been to the Outer Banks, Myrtle Beach, Wrightsville Beach, and Hilton Head, and this is where we’ve found the most reliable shelling.  Since my mom and I enjoy it so much, this is where we continue to take our family beach trips.  We also have extended family in this area, so that makes it ideal as well. You can find a shelling guide for Isle of Palms and Wild Dunes Resort HERE.  I’ll add some more tips to the guide after this trip.   What do you do

We are back in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, for Spring Break.  We love coming this time of year because it’s still “off season”, so it isn’t crowded, and it’s rarely overly hot.  We can still have some warm, sticky days, and we do risk having gloomy, cold days that aren’t great for the beach, but we have found this is a good window for our crew.  I’m often asked what the water temperature is here in early March.  I always wade up to about my knees and sometimes my waist if the shelling is good.  It’s cold, but feels refreshing on a sunny day. I couldn’t even begin to guess the water temperature, but I looked it up, and it’s 59º today.  There are a few people swimming, but many of them wear wetsuits this time of year. The highlight of my beach trips is always the shelling.  If

On our last two visits to Florence, Mom and I tried to find a specific place: a piazza where my brother and I each sat for a pastel portrait.  We even described it to the private guide who led us around the city in 2019, and she wasn’t sure where we could find it.  We figured we would never be able to find it again, given so much time had passed, and our memories of the place were fuzzy, so we didn’t even think about it this trip. We left our hotel (you can read about where we stayed HERE) early to give ourselves plenty of time to walk through the crowded streets to the Uffizi for our 3:00 scheduled entrance time.   It wasn’t a far walk, but we used Google Maps to guide us, since we hadn’t been there before. When we turned the corner into the courtyard