First, I’ll start out by asking, “How can I have grown up in SC and never have visited here?”
Charles Towne Landing commemorates the site where the first English settlers to the area established their first town(e), which would eventually turn in to South Carolina’s first capital.
This is a very well established park, with a great visitor’s center and museum, and the grounds are quite extensive. One could easily spend a whole day here.
The museum helps interpret the history, not leaving out that the Native Americans were here before the Europeans. (It’s a good reminder that place names like Kiawah and Edisto were once the names of different groups of indigenous people.) The museum also highlighted the importance that Barbados played in the establishment of Charleston (in that there was plenty of sugar and rum there for trade). Of course, the museum doesn’t shy away from the great contributions of the Africans that were forcibly brought here.
Once outside, you can visit the Animal Forest, which houses animals that would have been native to the area in the seventeenth century. Of course there were deer and turkey, but there were also bison, elk, and a bald eagle. Interestingly enough, there were animals here that we don’t even have at our zoo here in Columbia (namely a puma and a black bear, and in fact, none of the previous animals that I mentioned either).
We also visited the Adventure, a replica seventeenth-century trading ship that you can board and imagine what it would have been like four hundred years ago out on the open seas.
The park (which is the actual place of the original settlement) sits right on the marsh, so it affords a great natural view and a view of modern downtown Charleston.
It was hot the day that we went and there were areas with little shade, so it might be nice to come back 1) when the kids could cover greater distance without as much complaining, and/or 2) when the weather were cooler. It would also be nice to spend more time in the museum, as kids + museum = you can’t really read anything.
Growing up, I took a school trip to Colonial Williamsburg in fifth grade, a trip to the SC State House in third grade, and a trip to Charleston focusing on architecture in eighth grade; however, I’m curious as to why Charles Towne Landing was never a destination. (It’s basically the SC version of Colonial Williamsburg, insofar as it commemorates one of the earliest settlements in the area, though CTL doesn’t have the collection of (recreated) buildings.)
This is the most expensive site in the SC State Park system ($12 for adults), but just go ahead and get your family an annual pass ($99) to visit any of our state’s parks at any time for a year. Well worth it!
Beavers in the Park 