When the Sea Pines trolley regular summertime service resumes on May 24, visitors and Sea Pines residents alike get a pleasurable option back, for traveling in style to some of the most attractive spots on Hilton Head Island. The one destination that all three trolley routes share in common is The Shops at Sea Pines Center, and that makes this a great spot to get practically anywhere.

The other destinations of the Sea Pines Trolley also sound like a litany of pleasure points, the places where memorable days take shape: Harbour Town, South Beach, the Sea Pines Beach Club, the Harbour Town Swimming Pool, the Racquet Club Villas, the Heritage Pad at Lighthouse Road & Plantation Drive, and the lovely Lawton Stables. Who wouldn’t want to go?

And especially when it comes to the trolley, getting there is clearly part of the fun.

Some of Our Favorite Rides

Our Sea Pines Trolley whisks vacationers and residents, couples and families, first dates and wedding parties to the main events of the dream that our Hilton Head Island founders envisioned, right here in Sea Pines.

Lawton Stables, just up the way, presents the beauty and calm of horses. Whether you’re there just to show the kids, to pat them over the fence, to take them on a trail ride, or even for a horseback tour of the resort, our equestrian friends share a kind of contemplation. The senses are involved. The pulse slows down, and thoughts turn serene as we take in the dignity of horses and the caring ways they inspire among people.

The Sea Pines Beach Club is another favorite destination for the Sea Pines Trolley. Guests enjoy a beach that appears on somebody’s “10 Top in the World” list just about every year, and for good reason. The amenities here are in every way world-class, too.

Harbour Town and the Yacht Basin are quite simply the must-do spots for Hilton Head Island vacationers, whether it’s their first visit or their 40th. Our iconic Harbour Town Lighthouse is the landmark that vacationers compare to the pyramids and the Eifel Tower – if you haven’t seen them, then you haven’t been there.

How to Go in Style

Like The Shops at Sea Pines Center themselves, the trolley seems to fit the mood of Sea Pines – breezy, stylish, unruffled. The busy dreamers who envisioned Sea Pines originally put The Shops at Sea Pines Center right in the middle of the miracle mile, and they made an inspired choice with the trolley, too.

It must be style that makes a trolley, because our Sea Pines Trolley is one example of a conveyance that has outlived every major technical development in getting people from here to there. Trolleys at first were horse-drawn. Then the British and Australians tried steam powered trolleys for a while.

Cables and Current

San Francisco was not the only city to install an elaborate, underground cable system for hauling trolleys down the tracks – Chicago, London, Melbourne, and Sydney did, too. The cable-drawn trolley in Dunedin, New Zealand, ran from 1881 to 1957. “Cable cars” were particularly good for hilly cities – not much of an issue here on Hilton Head Island, where our maximum elevation is barely more than 25 feet.

Electric trolleys were common all over the world for many years, maintaining contact via overhead electrical supply lines that sometimes hummed and sparked. The first suburban lifestyles were enabled by these quiet, civilized conveyances. They breezed through outlying neighborhoods, and people simply stepped on at the nearest platform, to arrive for work or shopping downtown. In neighborhoods such as Atlanta’s Kirkwood or Brookside in Kansas City, these former trolley paths now play host to runners, walkers, bicyclists, and dog-walkers who value the privileged, central locations of their right of way.

Reminders of a Lifestyle

The craze for cars, and the viability of gasoline-powered buses spelled the eclipse of relying on trolleys for basic public transport. So why do we still have a place for them, making a point of trolley riding, even when they come with engines and tires? Trolleys remind us of a lifestyle that cities thought they outgrew.

Our Sea Pines Trolley is one of the touches, one of the thoughtful details that makes Sea Pines the heart of Hilton Head Island. Our link with it is one of the things that make The Shops at Sea Pines Center an extraordinary place to enjoy.