Best Romantic Beach Getaways in the Southeast: Luxury Resorts Worth Leaving the Kids Home For

If you’ve spent any time around here, you already know I spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about beaches we can drive to from Atlanta. Usually I’m looking at them through the lens of a family trip. Where can Coop snorkel? Is there enough to do? Is the beach nice? Can we get there without spending an entire day traveling?

But Heath and I celebrate our 14th anniversary next month, and this time I’m looking for something completely different.

I don’t want the cooler, beach toys or a condo with a kitchen so I can somehow find myself making breakfast on vacation. I want someone to hand me a cocktail, point me toward the spa and tell me they’ll take care of the rest.

We’ve done plenty of trips together over the years that involved hiking boots, backpacks and getting dirty. We actually love those trips. But for an anniversary long weekend, I’m currently craving a little ridiculous luxury. Somewhere beautiful, quiet and preferably near the water. A great dinner, a gorgeous room, a spa, maybe a bike ride or walk on the beach and absolutely nowhere we have to be.

So I started looking.

These aren’t the cheapest romantic getaways from Atlanta, and that’s entirely the point. I’m looking at the places I’d consider if we decided our 14th anniversary was reason enough to splurge. Some are directly on the beach, while others are tucked along the rivers and marshes of the Lowcountry. All of them feel special enough that I’d happily leave the kid at home and disappear with my husband for a few days.

Montage Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton, South Carolina

This one is currently sitting VERY high on my list.

Montage Palmetto Bluff isn’t technically a beach resort, but I’m willing to bend my own rules for it. The resort sits along the May River in the South Carolina Lowcountry, surrounded by waterways, enormous live oaks and Spanish moss. If I’m looking for romantic rather than simply oceanfront, this might actually win.

The cottages are what caught my attention. Montage specifically recommends them for romantic getaways and anniversaries, and they come with private furnished screened porches and gas fireplaces. Give me a river-view cottage, a bottle of wine and nowhere I need to be until dinner and I’m already sold.

Then there’s Spa Montage. It has a private couples suite, an adults-only heated lap pool, sauna, steam room, whirlpool and cold plunge, plus actual couples treatments that range from massages to baths and longer spa experiences. Heath may need some convincing on the spa portion. I will not.

This feels like the place I’d choose if I wanted our anniversary weekend to be less about sightseeing and more about simply being somewhere beautiful together. Bikes, trails, the river, dinner, spa, repeat.

Not exactly suffering.

The Dunlin, Johns Island, South Carolina

The Dunlin wasn’t originally on my radar, which is exactly why I love finding places like this.

Part of Auberge Resorts Collection, it’s tucked into the Kiawah River community on Johns Island outside Charleston. This isn’t your traditional beachfront high-rise resort. Think marshes, river views, cottage-style rooms and a much quieter version of coastal South Carolina.

And this one has some serious travel-world love behind it. Condé Nast Traveler included The Dunlin on its 2025 Hot List, and Travel + Leisure readers ranked it the number one resort in South Carolina in its 2025 World’s Best Awards.

That certainly got my attention.

What I like about this one for an anniversary is that it feels intimate. I don’t necessarily need an enormous resort with a million things happening around us. Sometimes luxury is having a beautiful room, a great meal and enough quiet that you actually remember why you married the person sitting across from you.

Being close enough to Charleston for dinner or an afternoon in the city doesn’t exactly hurt either.

The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island, South Carolina

If I decide I absolutely need the ocean outside my window, Kiawah becomes very hard to beat.

The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort gives you the big luxury resort experience, but you’re still sitting on one of South Carolina’s most beautiful barrier islands. The beach is wide, the island is gorgeous and there are miles of biking and walking trails if sitting beside a pool all weekend starts making us twitchy.

And let’s be clear. It probably would.

Heath and I are not particularly good at sitting still for three straight days. Give us a morning on the beach and by afternoon one of us is going to suggest we go explore something.

That’s what I like about Kiawah. We could make the trip as lazy or active as we wanted. Spend the morning at the spa, bike around the island in the afternoon and clean ourselves up for a ridiculously nice dinner that night.

This one feels like the best choice if I want an actual luxury beach anniversary rather than a Low country retreat that happens to be near the coast.

The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, Florida

Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need the Ritz.

The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island sits directly on the Atlantic and gives you the version of a beach trip where somebody else is responsible for pretty much everything.

There are three private boardwalks leading to a quarter-mile stretch of oceanfront, with chairs, umbrellas, cabanas and daybeds available on the beach. There’s also an adults-only spa pool for spa guests, complete with underwater music, a therapeutic whirlpool and poolside food and drink service.

And then there is the spa itself, which offers couples massages along with a pretty extensive menu of treatments.

This is probably the safest bet on my list. I’m not discovering some tiny secret resort nobody has heard of, but that’s not necessarily what I need for an anniversary. Sometimes I want to know the room will be beautiful, dinner will be good, the beach is right there and if I decide I need a massage at 10 a.m. followed by absolutely nothing productive for the remainder of the day, someone can make that happen.

Amelia Island itself is also one of those places where I’d happily leave the resort for a few hours. We could wander around historic Fernandina Beach, find somewhere great for dinner and then retreat right back to the Ritz.

The Inn & Club at Harbour Town, Hilton Head Island

Hilton Head has been one of our family’s go-to beach destinations, so I almost skipped it entirely for this list. An anniversary trip should feel different from packing up the car for another family beach week.

But The Inn & Club at Harbour Town changed my mind.

It’s inside Sea Pines and has only 60 rooms, which immediately gives it a much more intimate feel than the big beachfront resorts. It’s also the only Forbes Four-Star hotel on Hilton Head Island.

This is not the choice I’d make if waking up directly on the ocean were non-negotiable. The hotel sits near Harbour Town Golf Links rather than on the beach, but that’s also part of why I think it works for a couples trip.

Sea Pines is beautiful. We could bike, golf, head over to the Beach Club, have dinner around Harbour Town and experience Hilton Head completely differently than we normally do with Coop.

There’s also something appealing about going somewhere familiar and simply upgrading the entire experience.

No grocery run. No condo kitchen.

No asking anyone what they want for breakfast.

I could get behind this.

Ponte Vedra Inn & Club, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

This might be my sleeper pick.

Ponte Vedra Inn & Club has been around since 1928 and has that old-school Florida luxury feel rather than the shiny new mega-resort vibe. It’s AAA Five-Diamond rated and sits directly on a beautiful stretch of Atlantic beach. Some of the oceanfront rooms have private balconies or patios directly on the beach, plus soaking tubs and unobstructed ocean views.

But naturally, I found the spa.

It’s 30,000 square feet with more than 100 treatments, private couples suites, steam rooms, sauna, Jacuzzi, an outdoor pool and therapy grottos.

This feels like somewhere we’d go specifically because we wanted to stay at the resort, not because we had a giant list of things to do nearby.

And I’m beginning to realize that’s exactly what I want from this particular trip.

We spend enough of our normal vacations exploring from morning until night. For an anniversary, I’m perfectly capable of exploring my way from an oceanfront room to the spa and then over to dinner.

Growth.

Jekyll Ocean Club, Jekyll Island, Georgia

I wanted at least one Georgia option on this list, and Jekyll Ocean Club is an interesting one because it gives you two completely different experiences in one stay.

The Ocean Club itself is a small AAA Four Diamond, all-suite oceanfront property with only 40 suites. The rooms are large, with separate living spaces and private patios or balconies, and there’s a heated oceanfront pool, hot tub and beachfront dining at Eighty Ocean Kitchen and Bar.

But guests also have access to the amenities at the historic Jekyll Island Club Resort. That means we could stay directly on the ocean but still spend time among the giant live oaks and Gilded Age architecture at the original property. The historic resort dates to 1888 and was renovated in 2024.

I really like that combination.

Jekyll itself is also quiet enough that it already feels like an escape. We could bike around the island, walk Driftwood Beach, have dinner, sit by the ocean and call it a weekend.

This one doesn’t have quite the over-the-top luxury factor of Montage or the Ritz, but it may have something equally appealing: less production.

Get in the car, drive south, check into an oceanfront suite and disappear for a couple of days.

There are worse ways to celebrate 14 years.

So Where Are We Going for Our Anniversary?

I don’t know yet.

This post is basically me doing my own homework in public.

If we’re going strictly on what is calling my name right now, Montage Palmetto Bluff is going to be difficult to beat. There’s something about a private cottage, the May River, Spanish moss and a spa that sounds pretty darn perfect for an anniversary.

But The Dunlin intrigues me because it’s newer and feels a little more secluded. Kiawah wins if I decide I need a true beach. The Ritz is probably the easiest answer if I want classic luxury without wondering whether we’ve made the right choice. And Ponte Vedra may be the one quietly sneaking up the list while nobody is looking.

The funny thing is that Heath and I have never needed luxury to have a good trip together. We’ve spent years hiking mountains, sleeping in cabins and coming back from vacations with muddy shoes and sore legs. Some of my favorite memories with him have absolutely nothing to do with thread counts or room service.

But fourteen years feels worth celebrating.

And after fourteen years of marriage, work, parenting, schedules, soccer, dogs and everything else that fills the space between anniversaries, a few days where nobody needs anything from either of us sounds pretty luxurious all by itself.

Add an ocean view, a great dinner and maybe that couples massage?

I think we’ve earned it.