Most museums make you look at history through glass cases and velvet ropes, but Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant lets you climb inside it, walk through it, and occasionally bump your head on it.
Here’s the thing about visiting an actual aircraft carrier: no amount of watching Top Gun or reading Tom Clancy novels prepares you for the sheer enormity of standing next to the USS Yorktown.
This isn’t some replica or scaled-down model sitting in a parking lot somewhere.
This is a genuine, honest-to-goodness Essex-class aircraft carrier that served in World War II and Vietnam, and now it’s permanently docked in Charleston Harbor, waiting for you to explore every nook and cranny…