In August, when Devin and I got back to New York, I declared, ‘Hey! If I still have a job in December and I’ve managed to save up some money, I want to take my mom to the beach’, and Devin said, ‘Of course you will have a job’.

Spoiler alert: he was right about the job (phew!).

I’ve always wanted to take my mom to Carolina, Puerto Rico because her name is Karolina, but my meager savings were not enough to go there. I did, however, have enough reward miles for one roundtrip flight to Charleston, South Carolina. After I did some research and learned that there are islands there, I decided it was the perfect destination. Island setting? Check. Carolina in its name? Check. It’s practically Puerto Rico, you guys.

We went for a week in March and left completely smitten. Charleston is nice, but the first thing my mom, Devin, and I each noticed was how segregated it is. And how expensive it is for a city in the South. It’s hard to imagine that jobs in the area pay well enough to buy $9 juices and $30 dinners…

After a few days in Charleston, we left for a vacation rental on one of the tiny islands that dot the Carolina coast. Next time I’d skip the city altogether and go straight there.

Not pictured: woodland friends including owls and baby deer, the summer camp that looked Wes Anderson meets It Takes Two, all the colorful wooden houses, more Spanish moss.