There's No Other Place In South Carolina Quite As Odd As This Island That's Home To 4,000 Monkeys

There is only one other place in the U.S. where Rhesus monkeys live and thrive in the wild, and the story there is entirely different than the research that brought them to South Carolina. As history tells it, the monkeys currently living in Silver Springs, Florida, were brought in by a boat tour attraction in the springs approximately a hundred years ago and set free to serve as eye candy for tourists. Today, Silver Springs is estimated to have about 400 Rhesus monkeys living in the wild.

Visitors to Silver Springs can kayak down the lazy rivers of the park and see the monkeys up close without getting too close. Tales spin all over Florida of uninformed visitors who happen to have food on their kayaks and find themselves under siege from the monkeys who don't hesitate to take a little swim out to a kayak to score some food. The lesson here is to heed the warning: Leave the food at home. These monkeys, although cute... are not friendly.

A few tour companies in and around Beaufort and Edisto have designated boat tours that ferry guests over to have a look at the cute non-human primates that call the island home.

In their experience, the monkeys don't much like to spend time on the beach in the heat of the summer. The best bet is to see them in the spring and fall, and this is when the tour is best taken.

The coastal vistas, with low-hanging branches of enormous live oak trees strewn with Spanish moss, marshlands with wispy tall grass waving gently in the breeze, and some of the most beautiful beaches in America are among the most commonly sought after sights.