Travel Guide to Kiawah Island

While Kiawah Island does have its dangers, such as alligators, monster spiders, snakes and other wildlife, there are other, greater problems with which island-goers may have to contend.

Having been to Kiawah Island for several summers in a row, I have not yet dealt with, or heard of, man-eating gators. Likewise with the spiders and snakes. It seems that one generally has to look for them in order to find them.

One of the first dangers that my massive familial unit encountered was a well-meaninged vacationer. Honestly, though, we attacked him first. We asked him to take a picture or two of an entire half of our family tree at one time.

"Click, click." We stood and smiled. "Click, click." We smiled some more as "click, click" guy pretended to take pictures.

"Click, click," he went a third time with his mouth. I watched as he moved the shutter speed button for the fourth time. Then he flipped my Dad's very expensive camera and glanced at the bottom. "Man," he said, "what a crappy camera this is!"

We did find someone younger to take an actual photograph of all of us. Luckily, she didn't have as hard a time finding the single silver button set on the black top panel of the Canon camera.

House strangers are always dangerous, especially when one is sitting on the toilet in the bathroom.

"Hello," said an unknown voice on the other side of the bathroom door. "Does the door lock?"

This was all my son heard. He told me he silently prayed that the bathroom door was solidly locked and would protect him from the unknown individual on the other side of the door.

It turns out that we were having technical difficulties with the lock on the front door of the house. Apparently, the handy man had come during the day and fixed it. The unknown voice belonged to the gentleman sent to follow up on the repairs.

I'm concerned about the long-lasting effects this may have on my son's psyche when visiting bathrooms in places other than our own home.

Bicycles are likely the most dangerous things that exist on Kiawah Island. Two nephews, my son, my father and myself were bucked off the back of our wild bicycles!

My nephews' bikes sent them sprawling in the road. My son's sent him head first through a sandcastle. I was not made privy to my father's fall. And my bike? It tried to send me head first through the spokes of my mother's bike. I, however, foiled its plan and fell safely into a patch of gator-less grass.

While Kiawah Island is a beautiful, fun place to be, beware of the bicycles. They can be dangerous.