Most people’s idea of the perfect rural property would include a little bit of everything—upland timber, open fields, a freshwater pond or creek, a hardwood swamp and maybe even a saltwater creek or marsh. It would be useful for recreational activities like hunting, fishing, camping, hiking or riding ATVs. And it would also offer opportunities for generating additional income, such as farming, timber, or ranching.
What if I told you there’s a place in the Southeastern United States where you can have all those things in one property?
It’s a region where you can find Spanish Moss hanging off century-old oak trees, bright green saltwater marshes and towering sand dunes at the local family friendly beaches. It’s the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Many people have heard that the term “Lowcountry” usually includes the counties of Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper (represented in the dark burgundy color in the map on left). Originally, the South Carolina Lowcountry included all the counties below the fall line (the geological boundary separating an upland from a lowland). Many counties in the southern part of the state consider themselves to be a part of the Lowcountry region, generally anywhere from Charleston, over towards Aiken/Augusta, back to Beaufort, and all the way down to Savannah, Georgia, sitting on the state line.
But whether you’re just visiting for the weekend or searching for the perfect property in the South Carolina Lowcountry, it’s undeniable that this region has a lot to offer. Within 30 minutes, you can go to the beach or you can go hunting, saltwater fishing and freshwater fishing. Or you can visit Savannah, Georgia, or Charleston all within an hour’s drive. You have the city life, rural life and the beach all at your convenience.
You can find properties anywhere from 50 to 5,000 acres that accomplish all your land goals and dreams. Properties that have pine or hardwood timber, open upland fields, maybe a small swamp or creek bottom that wildlife love to frequent. Or maybe a property that borders one of the many fresh or saltwater rivers that cover the region.
The great thing about land in the Lowcountry region is that it is so diverse and encompasses so many different uses in such a short distance and in a fairly small, convenient area. The elevation above sea level can change fairly drastically from one end of a county to another, and even more from county to county (zero-foot elevation in parts of Beaufort county to a 300-foot elevation in parts of Allendale county, only about 45 miles away).
Although these areas can be drastically different, they’re generally very flat, with little to no large hills. This is very similar to the feeling you have while driving through the whole area and witnessing how everything just peacefully rolls together in a sense. Beaches roll into marshes, which roll into swamps, then into heavily wooded areas, into agricultural fields and livestock pastures (with many blended all together in between).
In one place you may have a farmer on a tractor in his fields planting crops such as cotton, corn, soybeans, or peanuts; while his son is loading hay to take to the pasture for their horses and cows. Right down the road you may have a logger thinning a couple hundred acres of 30-year-old loblolly pine trees to help convert into quail hunting habitat, right down from a sandy hill where a landscaper is raking pine straw from a 25-acre stand of young longleaf pines. Then, a couple miles down the road there’s a hunter sitting on the edge of a freshwater creek in an old hardwood swamp bottom waiting to take a rifle or bow shot at a big whitetail deer, an eastern wild turkey or maybe a wild hog. All the while, about 45 miles away, his wife is laying out on the beach taking in some sun, while his kids are out on the boat with grandpa fishing on a saltwater river or marsh flat for redfish and trout.
The South Carolina Lowcountry is also known for its multitude of historic large plantations, somewhere you can visit and schedule your hunting trips in advance. The main types of hunting you can do in the Lowcountry include, but are not limited to, turkey, deer, hogs, quail, ducks, and doves.
If you’re looking for more of a day that includes sightseeing, be sure to visit one of the historical towns or cities, such as Charleston, Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head Island, or Savannah, Georgia.
So, whether you’re a general outdoorsman, a hunter or a fisherman, the South Carolina Lowcountry offers a wide variety of land opportunities and outdoor activities for everyone from anywhere.