Congaree National Park in South Carolina is lovely. It is the largest old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the Southeast, has two campgrounds (walk-in, tent camping only), and miles of hiking trails. I walked a short ways along the 2.6 mile long Boardwalk Loop Trail and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous! Video
The issue is the access area to this national park is tiny, maybe two miles of road or so? With only one small parking lot at the visitor center that wasn’t at full capacity when I visited or I would not have been able to turn around to exit after chatting with one of the park staff. The main road ends at a dead-end of sorts just past the visitor center, again, with no turn around for RVs.
I almost got stuck with my little 14 foot Geo Pro trailer
That’s my new trailer in the featured photo above—I’ve named her “The Mermaid Lounge” and she’s awesome, pics and a post soon!—and I was barely able to fit into the area along the side of the road where most visitor’s park. The larger trailer parked ahead of me barely fit as well, and I’m sure didn’t have fun turning around after they drove through and realized there was no place for RVs to park anywhere.
Ignore this misinformation about RV parking that is online!
So I read the below and thought it meant you could park overnight in the visitor parking lot… which, of course, would mean a person would sleep in the RV. Jeez.
No clue what a park person was thinking puting this info online but it is very much incorrect. The maintenance guy I spoke with asked if I would clarify this in my blog post. So I am 🙂
“RVs or vehicles with trailers can be parked overnight in the oversized parking lot at the visitor center…”
No, you can’t.
Video of Congaree National Park
I took a video of the first campground area that is to the left after you enter the park—Longleaf Campground that has a large parking lot.
Hot tip: you CAN park an RV in this lot (and there is room to turn around) and stay for the day. Just go directly to Longleaf Campground. Then you don’t have to mess with the small visitor parking lot or dead end road.
I had decent cell coverage
It was a little slow but I was able to get online and get some things done before I took off. I’m sure cell coverage varies within the park but you can always go to the Visitor’s Center to get online.