Looking for the best scenic drive in SC? This national website says it has the answer
If you had a lazy day to go on a drive to see some part of South Carolina, what would you choose?
The live-oak tunnel along Botany Bay Road on Edisto Island? The meandering Highway 81 through small towns replete with historic churches along the Savannah River?
Both are pretty great, but Thrillist, a website that writes about food, drink, travel and entertainment, says Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway or Highway 11, edging the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains should be first on your list.
It’s “a road tripper’s drive,” the website said on its list of most scenic drives in each U.S. state.
The Foothills highway is about 120 miles and goes from Lake Hartwell near Fairplay to Gaffney across northwestern South Carolina.
It “packs a wealth of worthy pit stops, from mountain tunnels to roaring waterfalls and rickety old covered bridges,” Thrillist said.
Table Rock is on the route and offers seven hiking trails if you want to venture outside the car. That includes the very strenuous Table Rock Trail, 3.6 miles one way to the top of the granite dome. That’s a 2,000 foot climb.
Foothills highway crosses Lake Keowee then heads east to Cleveland, Campobello, Chesnee and finally ending in Gaffney.
The payoff, Thrillist says: “a glimpse of the gigantic fruit that is Gaffney’s Peachoid, a must-see for fans of roadside kitsch.” This unusual water tower was featured prominently in the Netflix series “House of Cards.”
By the way, Only in Your State website ranks this route as No. 3, behind Botany Bay and South Carolina’s Loneliest Road, Highway 107 or Falling Waters Scenic Byway in Oconee County. It’s 13 miles of scenic overlooks, a footpath to the Chattooga River and Moody Spring with clear mountain water right by the road..
Thrillist includes some tried and true locations around the country such as a Pacific Coast Highway in California, Pikes Peak Highway in Colorado and Seven Mile Bridge in Florida.
But then there’s the lesser knowns, such as Indiana’s Barn Quilt Trail in LaGrange County, home of the Amish, or Iowa’s Driftless Area Scenic Byway, 144 miles along high limestone bluffs, dense hardwood forests and the Upper Iowa River valley.
In Georgia it’s Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest and “killer turns” and in North Carolina the most scenic drive is, of course, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Thrillist says.