Everything started when we visited the South Carolina State Museum back in late 2022 for the first time. We were delighted with the many exhibits, but one stood out from the rest: the South Carolina State Park exhibit on the first floor, next to the entrance.
My family loves to go to State Parks to do different activities. Sometimes we just like to visit for a few hours (and walk a trail or use a playground), while other times we like to spend the weekend there camping. So it was only fitting to visit that exhibit.
When we entered it, we started to recognize many familiar park names (such as Sesquicentennial and Dreher Island, which are the local ones here in the Midlands) and some others that we visited before.
But soon, we encountered many other names of State Parks that had a special charm and that we were not familiar with: Hunting Island and Huntington Beach. Hunting Island has more than 1 million visitors each year and now that I have been there, I know why. It is just an amazing State Park with a fishing pier, a nature center, a quiet beach (not as crowded as other SC beaches), and very distinct wildlife (both plants and animals).
It is worthwhile to mention that if you are planning to get a cabin or go camping at Hunting Island State Park, you have to make reservations well in advance because it books up fast. You can make a reservation up to 12 months in advance on the website or by calling. We booked our reservation June 2023 to visit in June 2024 and it was just perfect!
The park is about three hours from Columbia and about 20 to 25 minutes from Beaufort, SC (a small, coastal town). We left Columbia around 5 p.m. Friday and stopped along the way to grab something for dinner, so we arrived at the park around 8:30 p.m., just in time for sunset. We used lamps and kept our car turned on to have enough light to build our camp site and then we chatted for a bit and went to sleep.
Saturday we were at the beach most of the day. The rustic campsites are oceanfront, but the regular RV/tent sites are just a quick walk to the ocean, which is still pretty good.
Other activities we did were riding bikes, flying a kite, playing on the playground and building a campfire at night.
Sunday morning, we packed our stuff early and went to visit the Nature Center, the lighthouse, and the fishing pier (near Fripp Island).
We left the area around 11 a.m. and stopped in Beaufort to have lunch, as it was Father’s Day. We came across a restaurant called Plum’s which had some seating outside where you could have a pretty view of the pier/boardwalk, and the food was amazing (our kids had some chicken tenders from the kids menu, while my husband had the shrimp Po’boy). We did have to wait about 15 minutes to get a table, but it was pretty reasonable, considering they didn’t accept reservations and it was Father’s Day.
So, thank you to the South Carolina State Museum for the wonderful recommendation to visit the Hunting Island State Park! We definitely plan to go back.
