Best Tent Camping near Fair Play, SC

Until this weekend, Hard Labor Creek State Park was our favorite GA campground! Sorry HLC, you’ve been bumped to #2 (still great)!

Victoria Bryant is hidden on Hwy 327, near Royston and, although a small campground, almost EVERY SITE IS PERFECT!

The park offers bicycle rentals, a swimming pool, plenty of picnic areas, multiple spots to play in the creek and some great hiking trails!

The campsites are HUGE and there are several extra amenities for campers to use! There’s a volleyball court, horseshoe pits, picnic pavilion and a central fire pit!

The park staff is great and the camp hosts are helpful! When we first arrived and began to set up, there was an electrical issue at our site but the park maintenance man had it resolved quickly!

The sites do not offer full hookups but there are multiple gray water dump sites in the campground (we used a five gallon bucket for our outdoor sink). We walked across the road from our site and dumped our bucket!

The park has the usual stuff to purchase (ice, firewood, etc.) but you can also head to Hartwell and hit the local Wally World if need be.

If you're camping in a tent, the tent sites are AMAZING! (see attached image) We've never seen these shelters before! You can even hang your hammock(s) underneath the shelter for a true outdoor camping experience!

We enjoyed every minute of our stay here, from the time we arrived to the time we left!

One more thing; if you're a golfer, there is a BEAUTIFUL golf course here as well!

We camped in our pop up but we'll probably be back to try out the tent shelters!!

FYI: Verizon Wireless has full 4G LTE service in the campground...we brought our MiFi Jetpack and streamed Netflix with zero issues!

This campground is located in Rosman NC, west of Brevard. We camped here as a base camp for day hikes in the area. It is very wooded, in a valley with a creek running alongside the tent camping sites. The scenery is gorgeous and horses and chickens were sweet. The tent sites are small, smaller than average park campsites. We woke to the smell of our neighbor smoking and coughing throughout the night.

The facilities are good, nice hot water in sinks and showers. Clean bathrooms etc. We also had a spigot and plug near our campsite if we needed them. The people were extremely friendly and kind.

We like for our kids to be able to run, play and explore while camping and this was not the site for that. Across the creek is a busy road which was not busy during the night, but had constant travel during the day.

Unicoi State Park is just two miles from Helen GA. It is a convenient location for visiting there, particularly in fall during the town’s Octoberfest. Unicoi is in North Georgia Mountains & includes a campground, cabins, “barrel cabins” and Lodge with a nice lake for fishing and canoeing. There are 51 RV sites with water and electricity that can accommodate 30-foot and 40-foot RVs, 82 tent sites, family tent campsites, walk-in sites and primitive “Squirrel’s Nest” sites. The park has numerous hiking trails in the Chattahoochee National Forest, plus a trail into Helen. Nearby is Anna Ruby Falls, administered by the US Forest Service. Smith Creek, a tributary of the Chattahoochee River flows from the falls to Unicoi Lake. It is a good trout fishing stream. Other activists include archery and target shooting, fly fishing, paddle boarding, boat rentals, zip lining, mountain biking and a beach.

We visited this park on Saturday, October 22, and discovered this was the day that reservations were going live to begin reserving the brand-new developed campground(Grassy Ridge Access) for dates starting on October 29. The campground will have five primitive cabins, 16 tent and 14 FHU sites. We were not even allowed to see the campground on this day. 

Frozen Creek Access will continue to offer first-come, first-served tent sites free of charge. These are not reservable. There are six designated backpack sites along the Foothills Trail near the southern boundary of the park. Dispersed primitive tent camping is available in Pisgah National Forest along the Rainbow Falls Trail. Access to this trail is from the Grassy Ridge entrance to the park. These sites are not reservable and are free of charge, but you must register at the visitor center or the trailhead. 

The Visitor Center is beautiful– not sure when it was completed. There is also a large picnic shelter near the Bearwallow Valley Trail. 

We only had time to hike the short trail to Upper Bearwallow Falls but would like to return to camp here and hike to Rainbow Falls so this park is on our return list for sure!

My favorite part of staying at this park was not actually camping, although I always love camping. My favorite part was hiking the trails, especially the Natural Bridge/Palmetto Trail. It is a loop trail, but you can opt to get on a longer trail along the loop. The hike seems easy at first, especially going down to the“natural bridge.” However, when you hike down, you have to hike up, and there were sections on the return that were steep. Along the way, not only do you see the natural bridge, but there is a small waterfall as well. As far as camping, there are RV sites and tent sites. I chose tent camping this time, and there was a large gravel pad. The sites seemed a little too close for me, but at least they were not on top of each other. The day that I went, the other tent sites were all reserved as far as I could tell. I found that surprising for a Tuesday night. Unfortunately, with so many people camping that close together, you never really get to sleep early since some people are up late talking. Nevertheless, once the talking died down, I went to sleep listening to the tree frogs. The bath house is a short walk away and is AIR CONDITIONED!!! Since I went in July, this was important. I was hoping to get in some canoeing, but there were strong thunderstorms and rain. As a matter of fact, I waited for a break so I could put up my tent. There is a camp store, and I enjoyed looking at the relief map in the visitor’s center. It also has displays in the visitor’s center with local history. There is also a boat ramp a short drive away from the campground. Even though I didn’t get to take full advantage of it, it is a lot better than many of the boat ramps I have seen. The biggest attraction for this park, other than the hiking trails, is obviously its access to Lake Keowee. Overall, it is a pretty good place to camp. I’m not fond of how close the sites were, but it’s a lot better than many campgrounds I have been to.