Alexander's List
A sandy road runs straight down an avenue of huge live oaks at Boone Hall Plantation, their branches meeting overhead and hung with Spanish moss, with low sunlight and long shadows across the grass and a wooden fence on the right
The Avenue of Oaks at Boone Hall Plantation, near Charleston. Photo by Jonathan Lamb on Wikimedia Commons, released into the public domain by the author. Cropped to 16:9, resized and saved as WebP.

Georgetown and Charleston, South Carolina

South Carolina Lowcountry: the spookiest road in the South

Spanish moss is neither Spanish nor moss. It’s a bromeliad, a cousin of the pineapple, and in the South Carolina Lowcountry it hangs off the old oaks like a Halloween set. The Oaks Plantation on the Santee River dates to a 1705 land grant. Hopsewee, now a National Historic Landmark, was the birthplace of Thomas Lynch Jr. (born 1749), a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was lost at sea in 1779. These plantations were built and worked by enslaved people, and their story is part of every visit. Quick tip: come in the morning, when the light through the moss is soft and the road is empty. The tours below aren’t at Hopsewee: they’re at Charleston-area plantations like Boone Hall, with its Avenue of Oaks, and Magnolia, about an hour south.

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Bookable experiences

Prices may change, so check the dates before you book. These tours are near Charleston, about an hour south of Hopsewee.