Lee State Park — Attraction in Bishopville

This park is beautiful with a delightful surprise!

We have been to Lee a few times. Some of them were with scouting groups, but we had been once on our own too to stamp our Ultimate Outsider book. And got lost! I'm still not sure what happened, but we ended up on equestrian trails and were pretty frustrated. So when my husband suggested it when I said I wanted to go hiking for Mother's Day, I went begrudgingly.

First, my middle daughter took a scavenger hunt from the information kiosk and had a grand time with that. Then, the natural wells, my kids adore those, and we stopped there as we started out on the Floodplain Trail. There were no maps at the kiosk, and we had taken a photo of the map posted, but we were happy to find a box with maps hanging on a post after going through the trail entrance behind the lake. When you get to that, make a right, and when the trail splits, stay right. After that, we walked down, did the boardwalk trail and followed the loop trail down further and....oh my goodness, the delight when we suddenly saw a plastic flower hanging from a tree and realized it was a fairy! Some magical soul turned this hike into a fairy village!!! Little wooden houses on the trees, fairies hanging from the trees, my kids had a ball. The fairies stopped after Harry Potter and then hopped on the Loop Road and walked straight back. This was around 3 miles. Perfect! Just a perfect day.

We also saw lots of lizards, a few snakes, and some turtles and frogs, which normally would have been exciting in itself, but the fairies really took the cake this time.

You can also drive to stop at the other wells, which we did, but my kids said the two down by the lake were still the best. They like to float pinecones down the little canal.

I usually print out the trail maps before we go, and I'd recommend it here especially, since the park office hours are...

Prepare for a gushing, glowing review. I really can't say enough about Lee State Park. A beautiful and serene place, packed full of history, with too many trails to count and the most amazing staff. Hosting horses along with humans this is an equine friendly facility. I don't own horses myself but we saw many people enjoying the campground and the trails with theirs. This wonderful CCC site has original, functional artesian wells that are clean for drinking, CCC built picnic shelters and a lodge they built as well. The lake swimming area is clean and safe. Turtles clearly enjoy the ponds as well. The campgrounds are good sized, clean and functional. The camp hosts were friendly, helpful and informative as were the rangers and administrative staff. A special note I would like to make. When we packed up camp and headed home I forgot the power supply to my electric cooler. We did not realize this until we got home, about 2 hours away. I called the Lee State Park office and within a few minutes had confirmation they had my power supply. Immediately I was informed it would be mailed to me at no cost. 3 days later it was in my mailbox. I can't thank the staff there enough for this. We could not have been happier with our time there. We can't...

This state park is a great place to just unplug and just camp. In late April, mainly hiking was the only option to do. Now in the hot summer I would expect a lot and a lot of Mosquitoes. There is a lot of standing swamp water. Now, the outstanding things here are the artesian wells here. I saw 5 or 6 on the property. The ones on the lower end by the fishing pond were rusty (had an irony tasting). The two up at the top of loop road are very clean tasting. I saw many people filling jugs to take water home with them.

This park has a horse area for camping with Carrolls to hold the horses. Also many horse riding trails (well marked). Also, an arena for riding.

The loop road is closed off because of some flooding that could be corrected with a little of road work. I was disappointed with the lack of the little details that could be done to take this park up a notch. Road work on the dirt roads on loop rd and camping area. Some small work with the primitive area with artesian well could be clean up and...