Afternoon: Check into the hotel between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. to settle into your rooms and pick up your Road Scholar information packets for the week.

Dinner: Enjoy a delicious dinner.

Evening: During orientation the week's activities will be discussed and participants will be given an opportunity to get to know their fellow participants.

Lodging: The Beach House - A Holiday Inn Resort

Meals Included: Dinner

History and Culture of Hilton Head Island/History of Hilton Head Island Field Trip

Breakfast: Healthy breakfast at the hotel.

Morning: This morning's lecture will focus on the fascinating aspects of Hilton Head Island's history that shaped Southern culture.

Lunch: Lunch

Afternoon: The Honey Horn History Walk is a guided adventure traveling back in time. You'll learn of native americans, planters, hunters and islanders. Discover how the island got its name and learn about the plantation system that existed from the 1700's until the Civil War.

Dinner: Dinner at a local lowcountry restaurant

Evening: Sea turtles presentation on Loggerhead Sea Turtles, which nest on the beaches of Hilton Head Island between May and August. Discover fascinating turtule facts, such as that an adult females will nest every two to four years, coming ashore between 4 and 6 times per season to lay eggs. Loggerheads typically nest at night, crawling to a dry part of the beach where females will dig a nest cavity with their rear flippers and deposit an average of 120 eggs. Once the eggs have been laid, the female throws sand to disguise the nest from predators and slowly returns to the ocean.

Lodging: The Beach House - A Holiday Inn Resort

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Healthy Breakfast at the hotel.

Morning: Gullah-Geechee Stories: Art and Poetry.

Morning: From alligators to no-see-ums, learn about some of the area's most intriguing residents and the habitat they call home.

Lunch: Lunch

Afternoon: Time for "hands on feet in" study of the crawling and swimming critters of this barrier island. Walk on the beach and learn how to throw a seine net. Explore along this beautiful shore to answer some tidal questions!

Dinner: Dinner

Evening: Continue the discovery of Hilton Head's Treasures with delightful guests offering lecture and information about the land and sea around the Island, delving deeper into the history, heritage and harvest aplenty offered by this fascinating area.

Lodging: The Beach House - A Holiday Inn Resort

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Healthy Breakfast at the hotel.

Morning: Probe the unique African-American culture of the Gullah with their traditions, folk rituals, and language.

Lunch: Lunch at the hotel.

Afternoon: Free time to enjoy the amenities of the Island or to visit nearby towns of interest

Dinner: Dinner on your own to enjoy local restaurants.

Evening: Free Evening

Lodging: The Beach House - A Holiday Inn Resort

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch

Breakfast: Healthy breakfast at the hotel.

Morning: Also this morning, you will visit the Heyward House (c.1841). It provides visitors a glimpse into the past. Guided excursions of the house and grounds are offered. One of only eight antebellum homes to survive the Civil War, this well-preserved house museum is the only historic home in Bluffton that is open to the public.

Morning: Step back in time to when oysters were hand picked and shucked at the Bluffton Oyster Factory. Get ready to see a shrimp trawler up close! In 1999, the Bluffton Oyster Company was awarded by the South Carolina Department of Commerce, cited as one of the top 10 oldest and still prosperous companies in the state of South Carolina. All oysters are harvested and shucked by hand. The Bluffton Oyster Company employs approximately 15 oyster pickers and up to 12 oysters shuckers on a daily basis during the oyster season.

Lunch: Lunch at Bluffton Oyster Company Restaurant. Take this opportunity to savor authentic Southern flavors and order the low country boil or enjoy fresh, local oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp, scallops, fish filets, and soft shell crabs.

Afternoon: Visit the Church of the Cross. Formal worship in the Bluffton area traces its roots to the establishment in 1767 of St. Luke’s Parish, where a church was built near Pritchardville in 1787. Service on “The Bluff” of the May River first took place in the early 1830s. The young town of Bluffton was a summer resort for area and inland planters and a stop on the ferry route between Savannah and Beaufort. By 1842, a chapel was built near the current location of The Church of the Cross. In July of 1857, the present building was consecrated. Architect E. B. White designed a structure described then as a “handsome cruciform Gothic building”, which indeed it remains today. Fanned arches with a look of palmettos top its mullioned windows that are framed by latticed shutters. The builders sent to England for the rose-colored glass in the windows. Inside, soft-pink scored plaster enhances the warm light. Exposed pine timbers evoke power and stability. In 1863, Federal troops marched into Bluffton burning most of the town. Although the church was spared, its congregation fled. Services on The Bluff resumed in 1870, when the Rev. E. E. Bellinger arrived and oversaw repairs.

Dinner: Dinner

Evening: Kim Poovey, author and professional storyteller, performs excerpts from the novel as Emma. Emma is the main character in the fictional novel Truer Words. She is a strong-willed, independent woman who is not afraid to stand up for what is right. Raised on a wealthy plantation in the Lowcountry of South Carolina during the Victorian era, Emma's life is not as simple as it appears. Her family holds a secret that could cost them their lives if discovered. But for Emma, doing the right thing is worth the risk.

Lodging: The Beach House - A Holiday Inn Resort

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Healthy Breakfast at the hotel.

Morning: Morning lecture will continue to discuss Hilton Head's past and present.

Lunch: Program concludes after morning lecture. No lunch is offered.

Meals Included: Breakfast