Charleston Historic Highlights Guided Bus Tour

Charleston city bus tour of the historic district

A Charleston bus tour covers more ground than a walking tour in the same time, and the air-conditioned coach keeps everyone comfortable when the summer sun is strong. Over about ninety minutes your guide moves through the historic district, explaining how a colonial port founded in the late seventeenth century grew into one of the wealthiest cities in early America and why so many buildings survived.

Large windows give you clear views of church steeples, shuttered houses and double-decker porches called piazzas. The guided city highlights tour is a good first outing: it helps you decide which parts of the peninsula to return to on foot, and which attractions are worth buying tickets for.

Rainbow Row and the waterfront

Rainbow Row, a line of pastel houses on East Bay Street, is the picture most people have in mind when they think of Charleston. The coach passes it along the old waterfront road, and the guide tells how these merchant houses were repainted in soft colours during the last century and became a symbol of the city's preservation movement.

The route follows the harbour edge where trading ships once unloaded cargo, so you also hear about the port, rice and cotton trade, and the harbour's role in the Civil War. Is Rainbow Row worth seeing? Yes, and from the coach you see it clearly without the crowds.

The High Battery and White Point Gardens

At the southern tip of the peninsula the High Battery is a raised seawall promenade with a row of grand houses facing the harbour. Many of them date from the early nineteenth century and look out toward Fort Sumter, which you can often see in the distance on a clear day.

Beside the seawall, White Point Gardens is a park of oak trees, cannons and memorials. The guide explains the defensive story of the peninsula and points out houses with famous owners and survivors of storms and earthquakes. If you want to walk here afterwards, it is only a short taxi ride from the central streets.

Historic residential streets and the French Quarter

The tour winds through quieter lanes with cobblestones, gas lamps and walled gardens, passing churches of several denominations that earned the city its nickname the Holy City. Around the French Quarter and the old market area you see buildings tied to the city's trade, craft and cultural life.

With a live guide on board, you learn which streets are best for an evening stroll, where to find local food, and which museums or historic houses to book next. Tickets for attractions are not included, so you are free to build the rest of your day around what interested you most.