not staying on a plantation--can I get into the plantations...

We ended up exchanging our timeshare for the Island Club at Seawatch which is on Folly Field Road. (There weren%26#39;t too many openings for Hilton Head timeshare exchanges).

Looking at a map of the plantations, I see that Island Club is not on one.

A couple of questions:

Will I still be able to get onto the plantations though for sightseeing, dining, shopping, etc. or are the plantations restricted to guests and residents only?

Give me a few sentences that describe a ';plantation';. Is it like a self-contained area with resorts and private homes, grocery stores, dining, etc. or what?

not staying on a plantation--can I get into the plantations...

It depends which Plantations or ';Gated Communities.'; That%26#39;s what a Plantation is ~ a Gated Community. There are some Residential Gated Communities or Plantations that you won%26#39;t be able to get in on your own. You can get into Sea Pines Plantation (which has a lot to do %26amp; see) for a $5.00 gate pass. Also there are a couple like Shipyard %26amp; Hilton Head Plantation that you can get in if you%26#39;re going to a restaurant or at the Hotels there.

not staying on a plantation--can I get into the plantations...

We went to the Hilton Head Plantation to see a historical site. We had to tell the security guard at the gate where we were going and he gave us a pass to put in our car window. The site was right next to the Old Fort restaurant.

After breakfast one morning at Sea Pines (Harbor Town), I mentioned to the waitress that we were going to see a particular plantation, hoping there would be a lot of history there. She smiled. ';Good luck, honey, those are gated communities.'; I guess it%26#39;s like naming a housing tract after the forest you destroyed to build it.

If you want to see a plantation, it%26#39;s quite a bit south but Hofwyl-Broadfield is a real winner.

We were in Hilton Head last week and wanted to go biking in Sea Pines Plantation. We had paid $5 the day before to go by car so figured they would probably charge $1 or $2 per bicycle. Wrong! The guard said you are not allowed to bicycle in Sea Pines unless you%26#39;re staying on the plantation.

So we rode our bikes from Forest Beach (where we were staying) along the beach to Sea Pines and turned in an entrance path when we knew we were well past the guard gate. (There%26#39;s a path about every ';block'; or so.) There was a sign saying ';If you%26#39;re not staying in Sea Pines Plantation, you are trespassing.'; We figured security wasn%26#39;t going to stop every bicyclist and ask for some kind of pass, so we ignored the sign and had no problems.

We also bicycled into Shipyard Plantation to check out the tennis courts. The guard let us in when we told him what we wanted to do--it was the truth but I suppose you could make up something that sounds plausible. We could have exited the Plantation through the public beach area, (almost next to the tennis courts we later found out), ridden back along the beach to our rental house in Forest Beach, and saved ourselves a lot of time. I%26#39;m not sure if you can get in that way or not.

We were in Palmetto Dunes Plantation to golf, but the guard gate is past the entrance for golf. I%26#39;m not sure if you can get into Palmetto Dunes from the beach by bicycle--I didn%26#39;t see any paths when we rode along the beach, but we weren%26#39;t looking to enter. There must be some paths to the beach from the Palmetto Dunes area, however.

The Forest Beach area is not a part of a plantation.