A Summer Road Trip Across SC, Part Two of a Three-Part Guide to Crisscrossing South Carolina Sumter’s regal O’Donnell House commands the eye. Built circa 1840 in the Italianate style, Frank Pierce Milburn remodeled it in 1905 in the Neo-Classical style. Once a funeral home, now a social venue, it’s on the National Register of […]

A Summer Road Trip Across S.C., Part One: From Spring Branch to Mayesville Summer means road trips. Here’s a guide to crossing South Carolina in three drives. Slung across the Palmetto State like a thin, low-hung belt and cosigning with 176, 378, 301, I-26, I-126, and other roads, 76 runs across the Palmetto State entire. […]

Want to take a trip down memory lane? Want to just drive with no particular place to go? Drive U.S. 1 north into the Tar Heel state. You’ll pass through many a small town, hailed as a place where values and virtues die with the greatest of reluctance. Mayberry comes to mind. It was a […]

This day trip is hard to estimate because addresses don’t exist. Still, I’d estimate that 115 miles or so will take you to a region rich with history. Beyond McCormick, toward the Georgia line, you’ll find old French Huguenot Country (Main directions below). Off U.S. Highway 378, your first stop is Badwell Cemetery. Stay on […]

For many years I drove down Highway 378 to my family home in Georgia. The journey took me through downtown Saluda. There I noticed a handsome old theater, the Saluda Theater. I didn’t know much about it, but that changed in 1987 when I was working on a book for the University of South Carolina […]

Two hours of back roads and about 98 miles will take you to McCormick, where the second-richest vein of gold in South Carolina history was discovered. In February 1852, William Burkhalter Dorn discovered gold where McCormick sits. The Dorn Gold Mine in McCormick is one of the more important gold mines in South Carolina. Dorn […]

Feel like a challenge? Drive about 122 miles to Pickens County and ascend Sassafras Mountain’s 3,560 feet – by car of course. When you do, you’ve reached the highest point in South Carolina, its rooftop. Standing on Sassafras Mountain you can look over a rippling green land in spring, a darker green in summer and […]

Less than two hours away, about 92 miles to the southwest, you’ll find a rich history. A town that can boast it’s the home to 10 governors, an historic pottery tradition and strange-but-colorful turkey art. We’re talking Edgefield where the statue of Strom Thurmond overlooks the town square. You’ll see classic antebellum homes, antique shops, […]

Head east-southeast for 175 miles and set your coordinates on Brookgreen Gardens. There you’ll find the world’s largest collection of outdoor sculpture (1,444 statues) in one of the Southeast’s more beautiful public gardens. Brookgreen Gardens is a major destination close by Murrells Inlet where you can find plenty of fine seafood restaurants when your statue […]

You can be sure birdwatchers know all about this daytrip destination. Two hours south, a 109-mile drive, will take you to two natural areas well worth the drive. Down near Harleyville, you’ll find the Francis Beidler Forest and within that forest runs Four Holes Swamp. Despite the name “swamp,” Four Holes is a river that […]