Diamond Hill Mine — Attraction in Abbeville

Good price, great people, and you can dig the whole day and take as much as you find for no additional price. And of course it is fun if you don't mind hard work and getting dirty. Don't forget your tools!

My parents got a senior discount ($10), but even at the full price of $20 it is worth it. You can find $20 worth of crystals in no time if you are lucky. The digging isn't easy but the time flies by.

We visited on April 22, 2023 and there were virtually no bugs. All the other miners and staff were super helpful and nice. We stayed in Anderson which is just about 30 minutes away and it was easy to get to the mine.

It was my first time digging for crystals and my first time at Diamond Hill mine. The crystals came slow in the morning as I jumped from spot to spot trying to find them, but once I started digging in big holes other people had already made it was a lot easier and I started finding more crystals.

Our main issue digging was our tools. we had a small folding shovel, some hand cultivators, and a long screwdriver. Since we were new we didn't know what was best to use. Obviously the shovel was best for starting holes, but that was labor intensive and slow compared to just using someone else's old hole.

The cultivators work great once you start a flat wall in a hole, but you run the risk of hitting a crystal too hard and chipping the point - and that was our main problem. I started using the screwdriver in my last hole at the end of the day and it worked great - just don't pry directly on the crystal or you could break it.

If you plan on staying the whole day bring plenty of water and at least some snacks or pack a lunch. I was drinking water but still ended up dehydrated at the end of the day.

The photos are all from just 1 day of digging, and they are just some of the nicer crystals we found. You can find quartz, skeletal quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, aquamarine, mica, feldspar...

I took my young kids (5, 3, and baby in a stroller) to Diamond Hill today. I’d never been, so it was sort of an experimental trip in that I wasn’t sure how long it would hold my older kids’ interest and how well the setup would work for the baby. Verdict: we all had an absolute BLAST. I had to drag the older two out at closing time—they would have stayed all night. Obviously the actual pits where the digging happens are not designed to be stroller friendly, but getting the stroller TO the pit was no problem. I was then able to park the stroller right beside the pit and sit three feet from it while I dug. The pit was a fairly confined space, so my older two could run around and dig without me having to be beside them the entire time. It was pretty much an ideal setup. Next time I will bring towels for cleanup— my kids wanted to pour water on some of their rocks and I underestimated how muddy that would end up being. The only staff we saw was the guy who takes payment/checks you in. He was so nice and so warm to my kids—my 3 year old asked if she could show one of the rocks she found to “the nice man at the tent.” And, while I honestly wouldn’t have cared if we came home empty handed since entertaining my kids for 5 hours is good enough in my book, we actually found some REALLY cool things. We’ve all been bitten by the rock hunting bug, probably me more than anyone. Even though it’s an hour drive for us, this will definitely be added to our rotation of “need to get out of the house” activities (and I would 100% go back by myself as well—it’s a great...

The Diamond Hill Mine is in our schedule of regularly visited hidden gems as far as a family-friendly and exciting outdoor activity. We have visited multiple times from Atlanta, and though it's a 2-hour drive there and back it's a wonderful day trip and we always find the crystals. Weekends are very busy, a weekday is definitely the best time, but even on weekends crowds are limited by parking and with a full lot, you can still dig in any area on the property safety distanced. The mine is extremely family friendly, the staff are warm and polite, there are no facilities other than a porta-john so make sure you bring extra water to wash your rocks, extra drinks and extra snacks, on sunny days some may even need sunscreen. Children under eight years old will probably have a tough time because this is not a roadside screen washing mine, you actually have to do the digging to find the crystals and you need gloves because you can cut your hands if you are careless. My eight year old didn't fare the best on her first trip but she helped me even after she was tired of digging. That was our first trip, in the year since then we have been back for more times, and every single time we find two to five gallons of Rock with Crystal on it and many smaller points some of them double terminated. Do not go with expectations of finding a giant specimen like some that you can see online, go with the expectation of doing the work to find the crystals and be prepared for that, you will be overwhelmingly happy with...