Tolbert Travels

We spent Labor Day 2026 tent camping at Edisto Beach State Park & we lucked out with beautiful weather! We had a storm Saturday night, but otherwise the skies were sunny. My husband and I, plus our two kids, camped with my mom, brother, and my brother’s new girlfriend. We decided to set up two large tents. One for Kristoff, me, and our kids. The other for my mom, my brother, his girlfriend, and all of our food.

We needed a rhythm reset, as the start of school is always busy. We slowed down and enjoyed time with family. It was the best exhale & helped us enter into September peacefully.

Where to camp?

There are two campgrounds, Beach Campground & Live Oak Campground, with water and electrical hookups. Beach Campground is ocean-side, and Live Oak Campground is near the salt marsh. If you are going to the beach, then I’m not sure why you would camp FAR from the beach (in a separate area) … so I do not recommend the sites by the salt marsh in Live Oak Campground. When you are on the state park site, select the lower box closest to the ocean to choose a site if you do not want to have to drive to the beach each day (technically illegal to drive golf carts from Live Oaks (salt marsh campground) to oceanside because that road is considered a highway even though it is only one lane going in each direction).

After you select the Beach Campground lower box, pick one of these sites below (if it is grey, then it is unavailable for your requested date).

There weren’t many sites available to choose from, so we ended up on site #3. As you can see in the graphic below, this put us right by Beach Access #5, which was nice. The problem with site #3 is that it is NOT flat, so with our two large tents it was more challenging to make it work for the two nights we camped here. My recommendation for next time is going to be for us to try site 74, maybe, as this was flat.

Click here to view the trails available in this park. We hiked ZERO miles on this trip and enjoyed being beach bums, so I can’t offer any suggestions this time haha. Click here to view the beach webcam to see what conditions are like right this second.

Pros & Cons

We enjoyed seeing lots of wildlife on this trip, including a sea turtle, two stingrays, a cannonball jelly, little crabs, and the line of faithful pelicans soaring over land and sea. The reason we saw a sea turtle & two stingrays in the dark water was because of a fisherman. They set up right by us, which was annoying, but at least we got to see what they caught throughout the day (never fish, by the way). The biggest con of the beach here is that it is VERY shelly. If you like to hunt shells, then this may be a huge pro for you personally, but for us … not so much. The shells made it harder to get in and out of the water without feeling pain, plus in some parts the sand is quite steep, also making it more difficult for our 3-year-old to enter and exit the ocean. Reader, you know I will tell you what the place is really like from my point of view. This isn’t the best beach for toddlers, but maybe teenagers and fishermen. I say teens because my brother found a neat feature after walking to the left on the beach. People were using tubes to enjoy a natural lazy river of sorts. So we will probably return when the kids are older to check this natural feature out.

Edisto Beach State Park was Elias’s 11th SC State Park & Arya’s 6th. Whoop! Whoop! We are making progress though our state recently added on more parks, so now we have over 50 to visit. NOT A BAD PROBLEM TO HAVE. Kristoff & I camped here years ago before having kids, so it was great to return and make new memories together as a family of four. So grateful for the time in the sunshine with my people. ❤