On the Road: A Short Trip to Greenville, S.C.
There are some cities and towns that fall under the radar and should be visited by curious travelers. Some folks refer to them as hidden gems.
Occasionally my wife and I take long weekend trips to various areas within a reasonable driving distance and we discovered a gem in Greenville, S.C. The small city is about 365 miles from our home in Frankfort, Ky., about a six-hour drive depending on the route (we took the scenic route through eastern Kentucky, crossing parts of southwestern Virginia, and east Tennessee).
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| Main Street |
While Greenville proper has a population of about 72,000, the metropolitan area has more than one million, making it the largest in South Carolina. It’s the hub of the prosperous and growing Upstate South Carolina, an economic and cultural region of more than 1.5 million.
Greenville, founded in 1797, is located in the foothills of the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains.
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| Falls Park on the Reedy |
We focused our trip on activities in Greenville, although there are many things to do within a short driving distance such as Furman University, Paris Mountain State Park, and numerous golf courses and hiking trails.
The downtown is well-preserved and a pleasant place to walk to shops, restaurants, museums, and performing arts venues as well as unexpected outdoor sites.
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| The Liberty Bridge |
The Liberty Bridge, which crosses the Reedy River and waterfalls, was our first place to visit. The pedestrian bridge is about 345 feet long. Falls Park on the Reedy was a bonus that we enjoyed, relaxing next to the falls on a warm August day in 2023.
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| Cancer Survivors Park |
The Swamp Rabbit Trail, an old railroad corridor, snakes through the heart of the city for 28 miles. We saw about as many bicyclists as we did hikers. We walked along the path from the bridge for a little more than a mile to the charming Greenville Zoo. We stopped along the way at the inspirational Cancer Survivors Park.
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| Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum |
If you’re a baseball fan, Greenville is home to the Drive, a High A-East affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. They play at Fluor Field, which has dimensions similar to Fenway Park in Boston. Right next to the stadium is the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum. Be sure and check times for when it’s open if you plan to visit.
Check the official Greenville website for things to see and do. We got an excellent visitor’s guide (it’s free) in the mail that helped us find places to visit, eat, and stay. It even suggests a pleasant and informative self-guided walking tour of the city.
Greenville, needless to say, is well worth the visit.
Until the next time . . .
