Island paradise takes on a new dimension somewhere between Savannah and Hilton Head, S.C.

Delete any photos in your head of tropical scenes luring you to a place quite unlike your normal world; replace them with images of this little southern sea island.

Daufuskie Island is worlds apart, but feels real and that’s a bonus when you travel.

No high-rise hotels on this beach; I stayed in a gentle yellow two-story Inn at Daufuskie Island Resort and Breathe Spa with croquet and bowling on the back lawn extending to the ocean, and visited cottages in soft pastels on streets lined with live oaks, and no vehicle larger than a golf cart or bicycle in front.

Lawns on my way to sand and surf are lovely, and not the norm.

A few hundred genuinely kind people live here and to get anywhere else they need the same 45-minute ferry ride you do. Cars stay behind.

Could be a key to good manners and civil conversation – they count on one another and the travelers who come to visit.

That ferry ride is just long enough to set aside last week’s worries and switch gears to a new adventure, counting Atlantic bottlenose dolphin along the way.

Some places I pretend I see dolphin when others claim a fin in the dark waters; in the intercoastal waterway en route to Daufuskie Island, I saw a dozen clearly.

Such abundance continued all weekend in many forms – fine food, loads of scenery, lawn games to play, horses and bikes to ride, hammocks to swing, peace and tranquility, plus accommodations both luxurious and cozy, and still more, including three miles of pristine beach.

Parking to catch the ferry is easy at the Hilton Head dock; airport transportation and not parking works well in Savannah.

Either way, pleasant anticipation builds among the passengers, crew and Island residents on the ferry.

I met two people heading for a wedding at the Daufuskie island Resort, and felt like a friend of the family the next day when I watched the bride arrive at the beachfront ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage.

No matter which of the 48 rooms you book in the Melrose Inn, you have a broad view of the beach. Front doors open to wrap-around porches with rocking chairs. The lobby opens to a sidewalk to the sea, but the dining room is on the second floor with panorama views of the ocean and if you’re an early bird, the sunrise.

Friendly place this is. Tourists are fine but I like to meet local people when I travel. Four hundred or so live on Daufuskie; maybe a dozen are descendents of the early Gullah people, descendents of slaves. Ernestine Smith is one and she’ll share some third- generation-on Daufuskie stories if you get a sandwich or sundries at the shop she manages at the Resort, right in the midst of the cottages on golf cart paths draped in a canopy of trees.

Feels like a neighborhood, not a rental.

Ernestine will encourage you to come to Daufuskie Days every June on the third Saturday for food, music, arts and crafts and a connection with Island history.

People who don’t start on Daufuskie choose to end up there. My vacation was four days but I met folks who had added a second and third vacation trip and then bought a house.

Two of them are regulars in the yoga class so after some lengthening stretches I found out about their neighborhoods on the beach and life without a car.

"We have book groups and church groups, a conservancy and historic foundation for starters," said Sarah Deitch. "A medical emergency? You can get an airlift to fine hospitals faster than many people can drive across their city. Otherwise, just schedule your appointments and enjoy the ferry."

The yoga teacher is a nurse and hops the ferry several days a week to care for people in Hilton Head. She and her anesthesiologist husband chose Daufuskie for a lifestyle with meaning.

"You have to give up some things to gain all that is wonderful about living here," says Laura Winholt.

Patrick Ford, the golf pro at the Resort, and his wife decided to live on the Island, and maybe even raise a family here, so they’re building a house, no small feat delivering all the materials by barge or ferry.

Must be a good place when people want to stay forever.

I set out to play all the games they do, to visit their favorite places and experience the lures of Daufuskie.

Sure, I had already read Pat Conroy’s book "The Water is Wide" and seen the movie "Conrack" about the teacher assigned to Mary Fields Elementary School on this sea island.

His is a story of creative teaching and respect for the Gullah children, descendents of slaves and members of families whose work in the oyster industries had been decimated by pollution from the Savannah River nuclear plant in the 1950s.

On a Daufuskie holiday it’s easy to concentrate exclusively on resort activities: golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf, 11 horses and one pony in the Equestrian Center for beach or trail rides suitable for beginners and the experienced, spa with the prettiest stone steam room I’ve ever seen, five swimming pools, three miles of beach, tennis courts, bikes and lots of trails both paved and natural, golf carts, hammocks in the shade, salt and fresh water fishing.

Eating is easy here — low country boil, ahi tuna, bananas foster, refreshing salads, tender beef, distinctive appetizers. Executive Chef Andrew Geller oversees four restaurants with distinctly different personalities and views, drawing on his training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and kitchens at the Outrigger Wailea Resort in Hawaii, Ritz Carlton in Naples and the Ocean Place Resort in New Jersey.

The challenge is this: leaving the Resort is a good plan too because the rest of Daufuskie is interesting, but it’s not easy to make yourself go. Give up to gain, like the yoga teacher said.

Many fine resorts like to lock you in; this one appears to believe so much in Daufuskie, its people and history that they are starting to provide sturdy, faster moving golf carts for guests to tour the rest of the Island.

First Union African Baptist Church built in 1872, Bloody Point lighthouse and Marshside Mama’s oyster factory turned restaurant are good starters and the Island artists are others.

Daufuskie artists tell interesting tales. Metal artist and blacksmith Chad Allen lives and works in a 1900s Gullah house. He used to sell real estate.

"If you spill a drink, it flows into the next room," he says.

He taught himself blacksmithing skills to forge iron fish, birds and mermaids and can’t imagine living anywhere else. "This community is super close and active, almost too busy."

Imagine that, with just a few hundred folks.

Laney and Emily Burns are potters who honor Daufuskie’s Cusabo and Yemassee Indian heritage; they display ancient stone tools and pottery shards in their studio and he uses old techniques to build pots today.

Take a look at the back yard boat too. Laney crossed the Atlantic Ocean five times in this small vessel.

Outside Hilton Head provides guided tours of the historic spots and artisan studios, and kayaking which feels like a nature hike in boat. This island really is a maritime forest.

Other tours to consider are shrimping and crabbing, dolphin discoveries and team building on nearby Page Island.

How about inviting your family reunion or the soon-to-be-in laws on a wedding weekend to get better acquainted on creative challenge courses in a private island reached only by small boat after that 45 minute ferry?

Daufuskie is a package of exceptional experiences.