Edisto Island Scenic Byway (SC 174)

Verified September 28, 2026 against the Federal Highway Administration’s America’s Byways program, the South Carolina Department of Transportation, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, South Carolina State Parks, the Town of Edisto Beach, the Edisto Island Museum and the Edisto Island Preservation Alliance.

Hunt closures, hours and fees change, so check before you go.

Most roads to the beach are something to get through. This one is the reason to go.

The Edisto Island National Scenic Byway is the last stretch of SC 174. It winds from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic through salt marsh, creeks, maritime forest, farm fields and historic churches, under live oaks hung with Spanish moss. Edisto even has a name for the pace: “Edi-slow.” This road is where you learn it.

SC 174 has been a National Scenic Byway since 2009, one of only four in the state. (Meet the other three on our Scenic Drives hub.) The whole route is paved, any regular car can drive it, and it costs nothing.

Start, finish and how long

• Start: From US 17, head south on SC 174. The byway begins at the foot of the McKinley Washington Jr. Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, about 6 miles past the SC 162 junction. A large sign at the base of the bridge marks the spot.
• Finish: About 17 miles later (16.79, if you’re counting), SC 174 meets Palmetto Boulevard at the edge of Edisto Beach. The Atlantic is straight ahead and the Edisto Beach State Park entrance is on your left.
• Getting there: It’s 28 miles on SC 174 from US 17 to the town of Edisto Beach, so the byway is most of the ride. The state park is about an hour from Charleston.
• How long: Straight through, it’s a short drive. With a few stops, plan a half day. Add Botany Bay’s driving tour and a beach walk, and it’s a full day.

The stops, in driving order

1. McKinley Washington Jr. Bridge and Dawhoo Landing. The bridge lifts you over the Intracoastal Waterway for your first big look at the marsh. The bridge and Dawhoo Landing, the public boat landing below it, are photographers’ favorites. Pull into the landing for pictures, stay clear of the ramp, and watch the water for dolphins.
2. Sand Creek and Russell Creek. Next come creek crossings and wide spartina marsh. Across Russell Creek you’ll see Windsor Plantation’s white-columned house, built in 1858. Admire it from the road.
3. Farm markets and sweetgrass. Roadside produce markets and a sweetgrass basket stand line the next stretch. The baskets carry on a Gullah tradition, woven by hand from local plants. Buy the tomatoes. Buy the basket.
4. Edisto Island Museum. About 5 miles past the bridge, turn right on Chisolm Plantation Road at the Middleton Plantation entrance, and the museum is immediately on your left. Inside are artifacts from the island’s cotton plantations, part of one of the last slave cabins on Edisto, and a permanent exhibit, “From Africa to Edisto Island: The Gullah Story,” on Gullah language, foodways, crafts, music, spirituality and folklore. It’s open Tuesday to Saturday: 11 to 5 from June through September, and 12 to 5 from October through May.
5. Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island. Back on SC 174, this church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, serves a congregation formed around 1685, one of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in South Carolina. Its large graveyard of old headstones, spires and monuments deserves a slow, quiet walk.
6. Old First Baptist Church. Established in 1818, it’s the oldest church building still in use on the island, and the second of Edisto’s three National Register churches.
7. Trinity Episcopal Church. The congregation and graveyard date to 1774. The wooden church, built around 1876, is the youngest and smallest of the three, and the island’s only example of Victorian church architecture. A little farther on, you pass the 1880s Bailey’s Store building and cross Store Creek.
8. Botany Bay Road. About 8.5 miles past the bridge, just beyond the Edisto Island Serpentarium, turn left on Botany Bay Road. Go about 2 miles; the entrance to Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area is on the left, just before the road ends. Read the next section before you turn.
9. Environmental Learning Center. Back on SC 174, a large brown state park sign points you onto State Cabin Road. Edisto Beach State Park’s learning center has fossils, live animals (an alligator among them) and exhibits on the island and the surrounding ACE Basin. It’s open Tuesday to Saturday, 9 to 4, and park admission applies. From the center, the easy 0.4-mile Spanish Mount Trail leads to a Native American shell midden about 4,000 years old, one of the earliest shell mound sites in South Carolina.
10. Edisto Beach. SC 174 crosses one last causeway and ends at Palmetto Boulevard, ocean ahead, state park on your left. The park’s 1.5 miles of palmetto-lined beach are famed for shells, sunrises and fossils, and the town adds 37 public beach accesses, one at each intersection on Palmetto Boulevard. End of the road, start of the beach.

Botany Bay: read this before you turn

Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area covers 4,687 acres on the northeast corner of Edisto, with almost three miles of undeveloped shore and the famous “boneyard” beach. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) opened it to the public in 2008. Know the rules before you go:

• Hours: 1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset.
• Closed: every Tuesday, and on scheduled hunt days (see below).
• Sign in: stop at the kiosk at the main gate and fill out a day use pass.
• The tour: a self-guided driving (or cycling) route of about 3 miles starts at the kiosk. The numbered markers are suggested stops. Give it an hour, or several.
• The beach: a spur off the tour leads to a parking area, and from there it’s about a half-mile walk to the sand. Bikes get parked at the end of the causeway; no riding on the beach.
• Vehicles: only vans of 15 passengers or smaller may tour the property, so leave the big rig at camp.
• Facilities: none. There are no restrooms and no trash cans anywhere on the property.
• Dogs: never on the causeway or the beach. Horses either.
• Take nothing: shells, fossils, driftwood, pottery, plants and fungi all stay put. That’s the law here, and it’s why the beach still looks like this.
• Also banned: alcohol and camping.

Hunt closures. SCDNR closes Botany Bay to all general visitors on scheduled hunt days, about 60 days a season, mostly from September into January. Check this season’s dates on SCDNR’s Botany Bay page before any trip, or call 843-844-8957.

Botany Bay also holds hard history. Its Sea Cloud and Bleak Hall plantations were combined into one of the largest long-staple cotton plantations on the East Coast, built and worked by enslaved people, and the chimney of a slave house still stands on the property. The Gullah culture that grew from that history lives on, in the museum’s exhibit and in the hands of the sweetgrass basket weavers along the road. For more of that story, see Penn Center & the Gullah Geechee Trail.

When to go

Spring and fall are the comfortable seasons on the coast. Fall has a catch here, though: Botany Bay’s hunt closures run from September into January, so check SCDNR’s dates before you plan a day around it.

Summer brings heat, bugs and beach traffic, so start early and keep an eye on the afternoon sky. Loggerhead sea turtles use these beaches, and from May 1 through October 31 the town bans any light shining on the beach at night. Keep flashlights and phone lights off the sand.

Winter is the quiet season, and the museum keeps its Tuesday to Saturday hours year round.

Road notes

• Surface: paved two-lane road all the way, fine for any passenger car. No tolls, no fee.
• Curves and canopy: the road winds under live oaks and over creek bridges. Take it slow, and use landings and parking lots for photos, never the travel lane.
• Share the road: expect cyclists, farm vehicles, and drivers braking for the same egret you just spotted.
• Fuel: top off before you turn onto SC 174, so you can wander without watching the gauge.
• Cell service: download your map and Botany Bay’s closure dates before you cross the bridge, in case your signal fades in the marsh.
• Traffic: summer weekends bring beach traffic. Check SCDOT’s 511SC for crashes and road work before you go.
• Beach parking: the town allows parking at its beach accesses from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. There’s no overnight parking or camping at beach accesses, town parks or streets.

Fees at the stops

The state park is open 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, until 8 p.m. during daylight saving time, and everyone except overnight guests pays admission.

Drive for every body

A scenic drive is about as easy-access as adventure gets: the views come to you, and you pick the stops. This byway has more good ones than most.

• Botany Bay: SCDNR says its driving tour offers excellent viewing for visitors with limited mobility, and the causeway to the beach is wheelchair accessible. It’s about a half mile from the parking area to the sand.
• Edisto Beach State Park: the park has more than 4 miles of ADA-accessible trails, the longest system of wheelchair-friendly hiking and biking trails in the state, including the route to the Spanish Mount shell midden.
• The park beach: visitors with a disability placard, registered to someone in the cart, may drive a golf cart on the park’s beach where there’s room. Beach access points can close after storms and high tides, so call the ranger station at 843-869-2156 (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) before you count on it.
• The town beach: the Town of Edisto Beach points visitors with accessibility needs to the Lybrand, Mitchell, Baynard and Edings beach accesses, and it has laid beach mats at Accesses 1, 9, 20 and 28 to help you over the dune. Town Hall: 843-869-2505.
• Restrooms: in the state park’s day-use area and at the town’s Bay Creek Park. None at Botany Bay.
• The museum: its website doesn’t describe access, so ask before you go.
• Discounts: South Carolina residents who are 65 or older, legally blind or disabled get reduced state park rates. Bring proof.

For more places with easier access, see our Accessibility Guide.

Make a day of it

• Pair it with Angel Oak. Our Angel Oak to Botany Bay: A Lowcountry Day Trip links the giant live oak on Johns Island with Botany Bay’s boneyard beach.
• Crab off a dock. In town, Bay Creek Park (3706 Dock Site Road) has a fishing and crabbing dock, picnic space, an interpretive center and public restrooms, plus a market on Wednesdays from April through October, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Our Crabbing hub has the how-to.
• Get on the water. The learning center’s exhibits cover the surrounding ACE Basin. To see it from a kayak, try our ACE Basin Wildlife Paddle.
• Bring binoculars. Along the road, watch for bald eagles, hawks, storks, egrets, turtles, alligators and deer. Botany Bay’s beach and woods are habitat for loggerhead sea turtles, least terns and painted buntings. Our Wildlife & Birding hub has more places to look.
• Stay the night. Edisto Beach State Park has two campgrounds with 120 sites, plus seven cabins on the salt marsh. Sleeping in a van? The town bans overnight parking and camping at beach accesses, parks and streets, so book a site, and read Where You Can Legally Sleep in a Van in South Carolina.

Leave it like you found it

• At Botany Bay, take nothing and pack out everything, since there are no trash cans.
• On the town beach, keep dogs leashed from May 1 through October 31, pick up after them, and leave glass at home.
• In the churchyards, remember these are sacred places and burial grounds. Walk softly, and don’t block a driveway or a service.
• Enjoy private homes and plantation houses from the road.

Now go outside and play. Edi-slow.