Stops Between Charleston and Columbia on I-26, Exit by Exit

The drive between Charleston and Columbia is about 110 miles of Interstate 26, two hours without stopping, and nearly all of it looks like pine trees. The stops worth leaving the road for are Summerville (exit 199), Beidler Forest at Harleyville (exit 177), St. George (exit 172), and Orangeburg with the Edisto Memorial Gardens (exits 145 to 154).

A note on exit numbers before anything else, because the internet gets this wrong. St. George sits near where I-26 and I-95 cross. From I-95, St. George is exit 77 (US 78). From I-26, it is exit 172 (US 15). Both are real exits numbered in the seventies and the hundred-seventies, and they are on different roads. The two interstates meet at I-26 exit 169, which is I-95 exit 86. Santee and its lake are on I-95 (exit 98), not I-26, and are left off this list for that reason.

Exits below are given eastbound-to-westbound, Charleston toward Columbia. Hours and prices are from the attractions’ own pages in October 2026.

Exit 199: Summerville

US 17 Alternate, about 25 miles from downtown Charleston. Summerville began as a pineland village in 1785 for Charleston planters escaping summer fever and insects, became a town in 1847, and in 1899 was named by an international congress of physicians one of the two best places in the world for lung ailments, on the strength of its pines. The 1886 earthquake started a fire that leveled much of the square. Today the population is about 51,000, the downtown is a National Register historic district, and the Flowertown Festival in late March or early April draws around 200,000 people to Azalea Park with free admission. For a quick stop: park on Main Street, walk the square, eat.

A few miles south of downtown on the Ashley River is Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site (300 State Park Road), the abandoned colonial town of Dorchester with its brick bell tower of 1751 and tabby fort of 1760. Open 9 to 6 during daylight saving time, 9 to 5 otherwise; $3 adults. It adds about 40 minutes and is the best history stop on this whole stretch. The dispatch for it is The Tower With No Bell.

Exit 177: Harleyville and Beidler Forest

SC 453, one mile to the town of Harleyville (incorporated 1893, population 666). The reason to get off here is the Audubon Center at Francis Beidler Forest, 336 Sanctuary Road, Harleyville, a 1.75-mile boardwalk through old-growth cypress and tupelo in Four Holes Swamp. Open Wednesday through Saturday 9 to 5 and Sunday 11 to 4; closed Monday and Tuesday. $12 adults, $7 children 6 to 12, free the second Saturday of each month. Budget an hour and a half for the loop plus the one-mile gravel drive in. On a Monday or Tuesday, the outer trails are open dawn to dusk and the boardwalk is not.

Exit 172: St. George

US 15, signed for St. George, Santee and Holly Hill. St. George is the Dorchester County seat, a railroad town incorporated in 1875 with 1,843 people at the last census. The three-faced town clock at 129 North Parler Avenue has stood since June 1955 and chimes the Westminster tune. The World Grits Festival has been held every April since 1986, except in 2020 and 2021. The restored Lourie Theater is downtown; the Lourie family’s dry goods store opened on Parler Avenue around 1914 before the business moved to Columbia in 1948. Five miles north of town on US 15 is Indian Field Methodist Campground, 99 wooden “tents” in a ring around an open tabernacle, in use since 1848 and on the National Register; it is church property, so look from the road. St. George is the town this site is written from. The county history explains why, and Whatever Hour It Strikes is about the clock.

Exit 169: the I-95 interchange

No stop here, only a reminder. If you are headed to Savannah or Florence, this is where you leave I-26. If you are going to Columbia, stay on.

Exits 154, 149 and 145: Orangeburg

Three exits serve Orangeburg: 154 (US 301), 149 (SC 33, the one for South Carolina State and Claflin universities) and 145 (US 601). Orangeburg began as a fur-trading post in 1704 and was settled by about 200 Swiss, German and Dutch families near the North Edisto River in 1735. It is 37 miles from Columbia, so this is the natural last stop on the way up or first stop on the way down.

The stop is Edisto Memorial Gardens, 218 Riverside Drive SW. Open daily dawn to dusk, free. More than 150 acres on the Edisto River, with about 4,800 rose plants in over 120 labeled varieties; the gardens served as an All-America Rose Selections test garden for nearly 40 years and now test for the American Rose Society. The azaleas were planted in the 1920s and the first roses in 1951. A 2,600-foot boardwalk runs through the Horne Wetlands Park cypress-tupelo swamp, which is a shorter, free alternative if Beidler’s hours did not fit. The Festival of Roses is the weekend before Mother’s Day in May.

Orangeburg is also where, on February 8, 1968, police fired on Black students near a bowling alley, killing three and wounding 27. It is not a stop in the tourist sense. It belongs on any honest account of the town.

A suggested two-stop version

If you have one extra hour: Summerville for lunch and the Edisto Gardens for a walk. If you have three: add Beidler Forest, checking the day of the week first. If you have the whole day, get off at exit 172 and do not get back on; the map will take it from there.

Where to stop between Charleston and Columbia