Beach Scapes

Edisto Beach State Park

Myrtle Beach, Huntington Beach, Edisto Beach and Hunting Island state parks protect about 9,000 acres of marshland, maritime forest and nearly 10 miles of unspoiled beach. They also offer nearly 800 campsites and 26 cabins so the family has a great place to stay while taking it all in.

Edisto Beach is well known for outstanding shelling. The Edisto Beach State Park has about a mile and a half of beach that regularly yields a wide variety of shells to the careful comber.

Edisto Beach State Park is on Edisto Island, one of the largest of the sea islands in the Carolinas and Georgia. It’s about a 45-minute drive south of Charleston, with the last 20 minutes or so on picturesque S.C. 174. The road passes by historic homes and churches through a tunnel of live oaks draped by Spanish moss and then emerges to cross an expansive salt marsh and arrive at the park’s main entrance and the adjacent classic little beach town of Edisto Beach.

The 1,250-acre park is, in fact, divided by the highway. On the ocean side are dozens of campsites nestled close to the surf under palmettos and other trees of the maritime forest. The beach itself is busy but not nearly as crowded as most public beaches on the East Coast and in the off season offers rare oceanfront solitude.

On the other side of the two-lane highway is more maritime forest which visitors can traverse by trail, as well as more campsites and seven two-bedroom cabins shaded by the trees along the marsh.

Also in those woods is the park’s environmental education center. A joint effort of the South Carolina State Park Service and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the center blends beautifully into its marsh-side setting. Interactive and passive education is its forte’, with the emphasis on portraying the delicate interplay between man and nature, beach and marsh, mainland and ocean.

The island has a long history. European settlers have been there since the 1690s, and it became famous for sea island cotton and now, vegetable farming.

Shells also play a large part in one of the more intriguing sites at Edisto Beach State Park. The Spanish Mount, known locally as the "Indian Mound",  is a large shell mound along Scotts Creek, reachable on a trail through the woods. The mound has been dated to around 2,000 B.C. and is the work of Native Americans. Why they made a shell ring and then filled it in over the years remains a mystery.

Click here for more about Edisto Beach State Park, or call the park at (843) 869-2756. For campsite or cabin reservations, you can also call 1-866-345-PARK (7275) or reserve online.