Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Blackville, SC

This one one of the cutest, most well-maintained State Park Campgrounds we’ve been to. The groundskeeper Larry is the nicest man and was so welcoming from booking to departure. You can tell he takes pride in caring for his site. There’s a nice big field for the dogs to play in and we were able to rent kayaks from the outfitter across the creek to explore the Edisto River. There’s a good burger place 3 miles down the road (Lee’s) too. The cell and WiFi worked great for full time remote work and locationally Colleton is about 1 hour between Charleston, Savannah, and Congaree National Park. I think this is also the smallest state park in South Carolina.

This is a very well-kept campground. There is no bath house or laundry on premises but there is a very nice dog park. It is mostly gravel with one or two streets being sand and all the sites are back in except one which we thought we were going to get but I guess someone called before we did and got it. Our site was level and we were able to set up quickly with the help of Mike the office manager. There is nothing for kids to do here so be advised the gravel becomes a toy! It was great for a night stay. Right off the interstate with lots of stores nearby including Walmart and Camping world.

Having been on the road for about three months before coming to Congaree, we were happy to arrive to such a quiet and tucked-away campground. For $5 per night, Bluff Campground was the perfect spot to hole up for a few days and relax surrounded by the old growth forest of Congaree National Park.

Our time at Congaree was different from the other national parks we visited, because South Carolina had just undergone major flooding and much of Congaree -- especially its trails -- were under water.

With no crowds and not much to explore, our three days in the park was very relaxing. We chose Bluff Campground -- a one-mile walk-in campground near the visitor center -- because we knew it would be less popular than Longleaf Campground, and we knew we’d be spending a lot of time there. The one mile hike seemed further than we thought because of our heavy loads, but once we arrived at our camp, set up our tent, chairs, hammocks, and slack line, we were able to just make the easy walk in and out each day.

The campground itself has no facilities; its only amenities are the fire ring and picnic table at each site. We encountered only one other camper in our two nights here. We did encounter many mosquitoes, though, so don’t forget bug spray!

At Congaree, there are several hiking trails and kayaking trails that we would have liked to do, but with our plans foiled by rain, we spent time at the visitor center, around the short boardwalk trail adjacent to the visitor center, and kayaking through the flooded plains, straight off the boardwalk.

You can read much more about our three days in the park on our blog: Switchback Kids (Congaree)

There are quite a variety of things to do at this state park, and the camp sites are spacious. There is a little store where you can buy any of the little things you may have forgotten. There were not too many people camping during our visit, but it could be that not many people want to stand the South Carolina heat! Either way, it made the visit quiet. There are also plenty of geocaches around, if you're into that. There are 2 places to shower in the campground, so I imagine that once it fills up, you may have to wait to shower. It was pretty clean and the water was clear, so I guess you could just go for a swim! I wish we had brought our tubes and some rope to float out on the water!

Campground was easy to find. It went south once we entered the campground. There is no signage to tell you anything. The manager who was very sweet had told me she would send me information but I didn’t receive anything. She got confused on the dates and was very apologetic. We drove all over the area looking for the office. There was a trailer that had a shower in one end and laundry in the other and a door marked private which “May” have been the office but we’ll never know. We have a 42’ 5th wheel and dragging this thing behind us around the campground was quite the adventure. Nobody seemed to know where the office was….we ended up at a dead end that was like a culdesac and someone parked their SUV on the curve instead of in their drive and it took us a while to spin the monster around. We could have sold tickets as we had an audience. Dinner and a movie I guess!! Finally got headed in the right direction and a guy in a pick up stopped and took us to his leader. We used actually 2 sites to park. It was full service, pretty quiet, lots of full time people. Not much grass, mostly sand and tree roots where we were parked. Nice sized dog park. Internet was poor. They have 2 different Wi-Fi’s to use neither of them were good. Our hotspot didn’t work well either- seems to be a dead area. I have AT&T cell service and had service at the camper but not while trolling through the park so I could call the office of course.

Sweetwater Lake Campground is a small RV campground. There is electric and water hookup and a dump station. Lots are decent size and fairly level on grass or gravel. The owners are very nice and available, if needed. Reservations are not taken, so you pull in and pick your spot. Drop your money in a lock box. The property has a nice size lake and all spots face it. There are fire pits and hammocks. The best and most fun part about this campground are the rescue donkeys. Their shelter and grazing area is situated directly behind the camper row. You can hear them bray and they will come to you and let you pet them, although, you should use caution as they warn you that donkeys bite. This is a very nice, quiet campground surrounded by private property of fields and lake. I really enjoyed our stay here!