Myrtle Beach (MYR): $10 Parking, $1.50 Bus, and How to Run a Car-Light Beach Week
Parking at Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR), the $1.50 Coast RTA bus, 10–20 minute rideshares, and a simple, qualitative framework for when MYR makes more sense than driving to a distant hub.
Flying into Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR), parking in the $10/day Economy Lot, then using the $1.50 Coast RTA bus or a 10–20 minute rideshare is a clean way to run a mostly car-light Grand Strand week.
This is not about collecting every coupon or gaming some distant hub. I am framing MYR as your home base if you want to spend more time on the sand and less time in transit, with one clearly labeled, strictly hypothetical thought experiment on how the idea of MYR can compare to driving to a bigger airport.
Here is what MYR itself gives you to work with:
- 2 terminals, 31 gates total. The Myrtle Beach International Airport Terminal has 18 gates, the Main Terminal has 13.
- 12 catalogued parking options. On-airport daily rates start at $10/day in the Economy Lot and run up to valet at $25/day.
- Shortest walk is 1 minute. That is Curbside Valet, listed as 1 min from car to terminal.
- Cheapest ride into town is $1.50. Coast RTA Route 15S / 15N show $1.50 fares, with Route 15N taking 25–35 minutes to central Myrtle Beach and Route 15S running 7 a.m. to 8 p.m..
- Rideshares in a tight band. Uber shows $15–30, 10–20 minutes to oceanfront resorts, with Lyft in a similar time range.
- Rental cars from around $18/day. Car Rentals are listed as “Prices as low as $18/day, 10–20 minutes to most central Myrtle Beach areas after pickup.”
- 12 catalogued dining options. Enough variety that you can feed kids or grab coffee without roaming far.
When you are planning a beach week, those numbers are friendly. Prices and times sit in tight, predictable ranges, which lets you treat the airport as an extension of the beach instead of a separate project.
Parking at Myrtle Beach International Airport: 12 options, 3 that matter
If you are specifically searching for parking at Myrtle Beach International Airport, the reality is that beach travelers only need to care about three core products out of the 12 listed: Economy, Long Term, and Valet. The rest are nice edge cases for day trips and pickups.
1. Economy Lot: $10/day, airport-listed 10 minute walk
The Economy Lot and Economy Parking Lot entries give you:
- Price: $10/day, the cheapest on-airport daily rate at MYR.
- Walk: listed as about a 10 minute walk to the terminal.
For about a week, you are looking at roughly seven times the daily $10 rate. You stay on-airport, with a simple walk and no shuttle timing to stress about.
For most repeat Grand Strand trips, this is the default. The walk is manageable, the math is easy, and you do not need to juggle off-airport buses with kids, strollers, and beach gear.
2. Long Term Parking: $12/day, similar walk
The Long Term Lot and Long Term Parking Lot show:
- Price: $12/day.
- Walk: also noted as roughly a 10 minute walk.
So you are paying a bit more per day than Economy and, on a typical week-long trip, roughly an extra week’s worth of that daily difference. If the location feels easier for your route in and out, or you just prefer its layout, that is a small premium for personal comfort.
3. Curbside Valet: $25/day, 1 minute walk
Curbside Valet is about trading money for energy:
- Price: $25/day, $7/hour.
- Walk: 1 minute to the terminal.
Over a week, that daily rate adds up quickly compared with the $10–12/day options. Where valet earns its keep:
- You are hauling a stroller, car seat, and beach bags solo.
- Mobility is an issue and a 10 minute walk is not trivial.
- It is blazing hot or pouring and you want the shortest outdoor time possible.
Actually, this is the one case where I tell friends with very young kids to consider paying up. The 1 minute curb-to-counter timeline can save everyone a meltdown.
Short-term and cell phone parking
MYR’s listings also include:
- Short Term Parking Lot and Short Term Parking at $21/day, $3/hour.
- A Short Term Lot at $32/day, with $1/hour pricing and a 5 minute walk.
For a full beach week, those daily numbers do not make sense when $10–12/day gives you similar access. I treat them as:
- Good for same-day trips.
- Fine for drop-offs and pickups where you might need an hour or two inside.
The data also includes a $0/day Cell Phone Lot in the short-term family:
- Your driver waits there for free.
- They only approach the curb once you call from baggage claim.
- You avoid paid parking entirely for a simple pickup.
How to get from MYR to Myrtle Beach: bus, Uber, taxi, or shuttle
If you are looking up how to get from MYR to Myrtle Beach by bus/Uber, you actually have a full menu to choose from. MYR’s ground-transport section lists:
- Bus
- Shuttle
- Other
- Rideshare
- Taxi
- Hotel shuttle
That sounds like a lot, but it collapses into four practical choices for most beach weeks.
1. Coast RTA bus: $1.50, 25–35 minutes into central Myrtle Beach
The Coast RTA Route 15S listing shows:
- Mode: Bus.
- Price: $1.50.
- Hours: Daily, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The Coast RTA Route 15N Bus entry adds:
- Price: $1.50.
- Time: 25–35 minutes to central Myrtle Beach.
So if your resort is in or near central Myrtle Beach and your flight times are inside that 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. window:
- Pay $1.50 per rider.
- Ride about half an hour.
- Walk or use a short rideshare hop at the end if needed.
For students or adults traveling light, this is the obvious first choice. The time cost is modest, and the price is barely more than a bottle of water at the airport.
2. Uber / Lyft: $15–30, 10–20 minutes to the oceanfront
The Uber from MYR listing gives:
- Mode: Rideshare.
- Price: $15–30.
- Time: 10–20 minutes to oceanfront resorts.
Lyft sits in the same 10–15 minute neighborhood for in-town rides.
For a family of four with checked bags and maybe a sleepy toddler, this is usually the sweet spot:
- One car in the $15–30 range can be cheaper than four bus tickets plus transfers.
- You go straight from the arrivals area to your hotel.
- You are at the beach in roughly the same time it would take you to find and board a shuttle.
3. Taxis and hotel shuttles
The Taxi stand at MYR entry shows:
- Mode: Taxi.
- Price: $20–35.
- Time: 10–20 minutes to oceanfront resorts once you are in the cab.
Taxis live in the same price and time band as rideshares. If you prefer a cab line with a visible queue and a dispatcher instead of your phone, this is the easy analog to Uber or Lyft.
On top of that, MYR lists:
If your resort runs one, your cost to and from the airport can drop to zero. The catch is timing, so confirm the schedule ahead so you are not stuck with kids and suitcases watching full shuttles drive by.
4. Car rentals and one-off car service
If you want flexibility midweek but do not need a car every day, Car Rentals at MYR are described as:
- Mode: Other.
- Prices: “As low as $18/day.”
- Time: 10–20 minutes to most central Myrtle Beach areas after pickup.
That supports a hybrid plan:
- Use bus, taxi, or rideshare for the airport transfers.
- Rent a car only on the days you plan to range up or down the Grand Strand or head inland.
For larger groups, Limousine / Car Service entries show 10–20 minute travel times into town. Split across enough people, this can feel like a treat without a huge per-person premium compared with two separate taxis.
The pattern is consistent: $1.50 to roughly $35, and 10–35 minutes. That predictability is the whole point if you want a car-light week.
MYR vs a distant hub: one simple thought experiment
The complaint I hear about smaller airports is always the same: “Fares are cheaper from the big airport.” Sometimes yes. Often, people are forgetting to count their time and ground costs.
To keep this honest, I am not using any real pricing from specific other airports here. Think of this as a conceptual exercise that shows how to think about the trade, without pretending we have data we do not.
Imagine:
- Family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids).
- 7-night beach trip.
- You live close to Myrtle Beach, so MYR is your home airport.
- There is a larger airport several hours away that looks cheaper on the fare search.
Option A: Use MYR as intended
Ground costs at MYR, pulled from its own catalog:
- Parking: Economy Lot at $10/day for the length of your trip, with that airport-listed 10 minute walk.
- Airport to oceanfront hotel on arrival: an Uber in the middle of the $15–30 band and 10–20 minute range.
- Hotel back to MYR on departure: another rideshare in that same rough range.
So your MYR-side ground spend usually looks like:
- About a week’s worth of on-airport parking at $10/day, and
- Two short trips that are each somewhere between $15 and $35 depending on traffic and surge.
Your time-of-day cost:
- Roughly 10–20 minutes each way between MYR and your hotel.
Option B: Drive to the big hub
Now picture the larger hub several hours away. We do not have that airport’s prices in this dataset, so I am staying purely qualitative here.
You are trading:
- Extra driving time. You add several hours behind the wheel, both outbound and inbound, on top of what you already spend in the air.
- Typically higher parking rates. Larger hubs often charge more per day than MYR’s $10–12/day Economy and Long Term rates.
- Extra fuel and possibly tolls. The longer round-trip drive means more gas and any toll roads between home and that airport.
What I want you to see is the structure:
- MYR gives you cheap, predictable parking and short, predictable rides into town.
- A distant hub often looks cheaper on the ticket, but the higher daily parking, extra fuel, and added drive time quietly eat into that advantage.
My own bias, shaped by too many long ground days at LAX and in the Bay, is that once you factor in kid energy, food stops, and everyone’s patience level, those “hidden” costs are real. For a lot of families, a smaller field like MYR quietly wins once you stop looking at airfare in isolation.
Terminal time: quick refuel, then beach
MYR’s footprint is simple: 2 terminals, 31 gates, and 12 dining options. It is not trying to be a destination; it is trying to get you to one.
The catalog gives you a range that covers the basics:
Plus shopping like:
The practical implication, especially with kids:
- You are not adding a 20-minute cross-airport hike into your timeline.
- You can grab sunscreen or snacks close to your gate.
- Security plus a quick food stop does not feel like an expedition.
I spent years at LAX watching families misjudge terminal distances. MYR is the opposite problem in a good way. It is compact, so pad your schedule a bit, but do not overbuild it.
MYR beach-week checklist: how I would run a car-light trip
Here is how I would structure a Grand Strand week around MYR, using its $10 parking and $1.50 bus to stay car-light without feeling stranded:
-
Price MYR first, hub second.
Treat MYR as your default. Only consider a distant hub if the fare savings clearly outweigh the extra driving time, typically higher parking rates at big airports, and the added fuel or tolls. -
Lock in Economy parking for week-long stays.
- Use Economy Lot or Economy Parking Lot at $10/day.
- Plan on roughly a week’s worth of parking at that daily rate and about a 10 minute walk each way.
-
Upgrade to Long Term or Valet only for comfort, not “savings.”
- Step up to Long Term at $12/day if that layout suits your route better.
- Use Curbside Valet at $25/day when you have strollers, mobility concerns, or brutal weather and the 1 minute walk keeps everyone saner.
-
Choose your airport transfer mode around bags and timing.
- Light bags, central Myrtle Beach, daytime arrival: ride Coast RTA 15N / 15S for $1.50, 25–35 minutes.
- Heavier bags or late arrivals: grab Uber or a taxi for $15–35, 10–20 minutes to the oceanfront.
- If your hotel runs a shuttle, default to that and keep transfers free.
-
Rent a car only on days you truly need one.
- Use Car Rentals “as low as $18/day” when you plan longer drives.
- Stay bus or ride-based the rest of the week so you are paying for actual usage, not for a car baking in a resort lot.
I was wrong about this for years when I overthought distant hubs for my own family; MYR shows how a small airport
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Theresa Doan
Six years at Korean Air ground ops at LAX. Vietnamese-American, writes part-time about Pacific Rim transit and family travel.