If you’re looking for a great destination for a quick road trip, I’d like to recommend South Carolina’s Congaree National Park for your consideration. The park is short drive from Columbia, which is home to both the South Carolina State Capitol and the University of South Carolina. The State Capitol grounds are beautiful, and there are plentiful restaurant and hotel options. Columbia is a 6 to 7-hour drive (mostly interstate) from either Monticello or Lexington, KY.

For a national park bucket-lister, it’s Congaree that’s the main attraction of this road trip. The park is often mis-labeled as a swamp, but in reality it contains the largest expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the United States. At several times, I felt like I was walking through the “Dead Marshes” from the Lord of the Rings because of the shallow, dark and sometimes reflective waters. Regardless of other descriptions, I found it to be a magical place when we visited in October 2020, and it became my 33rd National Park!

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The highlight of the park is the 2.4 mile Boardwalk Trail that begins from the visitor center and makes a loop through the swampy forest dominated by cypress trees and huge loblolly pines. Before making the drive, be sure to check the park’s official website for current conditions to determine whether the Boardwalk is passable, as parts of it tend to be underwater for portions of the year. It’s best to arrive to the Visitor Center early in the morning, especially if visiting on a weekend, to ensure you can find parking.

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You could make the trip to Congaree in as little as a weekend, but a three-day weekend would be ideal for getting there and back. For another day in the park, you could add a canoe trip on the Congaree River, which I haven’t done, but I think it would be pretty awesome.

With more time, there’s also plenty to see along the way to extend into a longer weekend! We left on a Saturday and made a four-day itinerary of it with some excellent scenery and stops on the way home.

Day 1 – Drove from Monticello, KY to Columbia, SC with a stop to tour Cowpens National Battlefield a Revolutionary War battle site;

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Day 2 – Arrived at Congaree at around 8:30 am and walked the Boardwalk Trail loop, spent some time driving around Congaree and Columbia, walked through the State Capitol grounds & had a nice dinner in downtown Columbia;

Day 3 – Departed Columbia and took the interstate back to just south of Asheville, NC, where we left the interstate to enter the Blue Ridge Parkway – a beautiful drive in its own right. We made a stop at Graveyard Fields to hike the Lower Falls trail, and drove to Cherokee, NC to spend the night;

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Day 4 – Drove to Bryson City, NC and into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to hike the Deep Creek Waterfall Loop and visit three excellent waterfalls – Juney Whank Falls, Tom Branch Falls, and Indian Creek Falls, and then drove back through the Smokies and home to Monticello.

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If you visit when fall colors are at their peak, I recommend avoiding weekends on the Blue Ridge Parkway and in the Smoky Mountains because experiencing the beauty of nature isn’t quite as fun if you’re in bumper-to-bumper traffic!

Another great thing about this easy road trip is the cost! All of these national parks and attractions have FREE admission, so lodging and gas are the main expenses for the whole trip. (Souvenirs are optional, and you have to eat wherever you are!) I recommend Choice Hotels for low cost hotel options with reliable quality in all these locations. They also have a solid rewards program.