Sesquicentennial State Park
Fourteen hundred acres of sandhills forest and a lake inside the city of Columbia.
- Richland County, SC
- Nearest town: Arcadia Lakes
- 269 ft
Coordinates
- Lat
- 34.08806
- Lng
- -80.90533
Van camping
You can drive in and sleep in your van here.
At a glance
The basics
What to expect
State park
Reservable sites, paved or well-graded roads, bathhouses in season.
- County
- Richland County
- State
- South Carolina
- Nearest town
- Arcadia Lakes
- Elevation
- 269 ft
- Max vehicle length
- Not verified
The place
About Sesquicentennial State Park
Sesquicentennial — universally shortened to Sesqui — is a large block of sandhills forest surrounded by Columbia's northeast suburbs, and it does a great deal with that. The sandhills are an old inland dune system with their own distinct ecology: longleaf pine, turkey oak and deep sandy soil that drains instantly after rain. A lake sits at the centre with a loop trail around it, and a network of hiking and mountain biking trails runs out through the pines. A restored eighteenth-century log house was moved here and stands near the lake. For anyone passing through Columbia, it is much the most pleasant place to stop.
For van drivers
Getting a van in and out
The most convenient access in the Midlands: paved roads, minutes from I-20 and I-77, with a developed drive-in campground. Full city services — groceries, fuel, laundry, hardware — are within a few miles, and Congaree National Park is about forty minutes south, which makes this the sensible base for visiting it. The sandy soil drains well, so sites stay usable after heavy rain. Cell signal is full strength.
Written for a high-roof van, not a pickup. Surfaces and clearances change with the weather and with the season’s roadwork — the official page below is the last word.
On the ground
Facilities & fees
Not verified means nobody has confirmed it — treat it as unknown, never as a no. 8 of the 8 below are still unconfirmed.
- Restrooms
- Not verified
- Drinking water
- Not verified
- Showers
- Not verified
- Dump station
- Not verified
- Hookups
- Not verified
- Campfires
- Not verified
- Dogs allowed
- Not verified
- Reservations
- Not verified
- Max vehicle length
- Not verified — check with the park
- Season
- Not verified — check with the park
- Fees
- Not verified — check with the park
The last word on all of this is southcarolinaparks.com(opens in a new tab).
Where it is
Coordinates & directions
Decimal degrees
- Latitude
- 34.088059
- Longitude
- -80.905332
34.0881° N · 80.9053° W
No map tiles here on purpose. Half of these places have no signal at the gate, so coordinates you can save offline beat a map that needs one. Drop them into your phone before you turn off the pavement.
Nearest gas and groceries: Arcadia Lakes
Before you go
Official sources
Fees, site counts, length limits and closures change season to season. Everything we have not confirmed ourselves is marked Not verified above rather than guessed at — and where we do have a number, the operator’s own page still wins.
Keep looking
Camp nearby
For sale
