Santee State Park

Lake Marion was created in the 1940s by damming the Santee River, and much of the drowned forest was never cleared, so the upper lake is still a maze of standing cypress and open water that makes for exceptional fishing and strange, memorable paddling. Santee State Park sits on the northern shore with its unusual cabins built out over the water on piers. Behind the shoreline, a limestone bluff holds a set of sinkholes and a small cave system — an odd geological pocket in an otherwise flat landscape — reached by the park's nature trails. Birding on the lake is excellent, and in winter the waterfowl numbers climb.