Reconstruction Era National Historical Park Guide
Category: National Park Sites
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My wife and I made a day trip to Beaufort, South Carolina, on our February trip and paired Reconstruction Era National Historical Park with Hunting Island State Park. We started at the visitor center in the old firehouse, then drove to Pinckney-Porter’s Chapel, Camp Saxton, Brick Baptist Church and the Penn Center. Several sites were…
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My wife and I visited Fort Pulaski National Monument in February while we were staying on Tybee Island, so it was right up the road. We watched the film, explored the fort and its tunnels, walked the moat to see the cannon damage, and hiked the Lighthouse Overlook and Dike trails. On the way out,…
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We visited Charles Pinckney National Historic Site on a Friday afternoon in February, while my wife and I were in the Lowcountry for a friend’s wedding in Savannah. The house was closed for the off-season, so we walked the nature trail, read the outdoor exhibits, saw the camellias in bloom, and rocked on the front…
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Canaveral National Seashore is worth visiting even when the ocean doesn’t cooperate. We visited the Apollo Beach side in late September 2026, the morning after a cold front, and walked straight into a king tide and massive waves that made swimming impossible and fishing very difficult. We still climbed Turtle Mound, tried to fish two…
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We visited Castillo de San Marcos during the Nights of Lights festival, the day after Fort Matanzas and Washington Oaks Gardens, and spent about 2 hours here. We toured the fort, watched them fire the cannon, and ate Publix subs on the seawall for lunch. This guide covers what it costs, when the cannon demonstrations…
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We visited Fort Matanzas National Monument in the morning and spent around 2 hours here. We took the free ferry to the fort, toured it, climbed the ladder to the roof, and walked the Nature Trail near the Visitor Center. This guide covers how the boarding passes work, what the fort is like inside, and…
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We stopped at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park while driving through Atlanta on the return trip from Ellijay. We hiked to the summit and back in 51 minutes, saw Stone Mountain in the distance from the top, and got back on the road. This guide covers what changed in 2026 (you can no longer drive…
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We stopped at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in early September on the drive up to north Georgia and spent about an hour and 45 minutes here. We watched the film, walked through the museum, stepped inside an Earth Lodge with a 1,000-year-old floor, climbed the Great Temple Mound, and finished with a lunch downtown…
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There’s a certain type of American who has been to Disney World 3 times and Yellowstone zero. There’s another kind who drove to the Grand Canyon, took a picture of the South Rim, and left. And then there’s the parksmaxxer – someone who shows up at a unit of the National Park System, that nobody’s…
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Big Thicket National Preserve is a heavily forested, 113,000-acre National Park Site across nine land units and six water corridors. Scientists have called it “the biological crossroads of North America”. It covers where eastern hardwood forests, Gulf Coast wetlands, pine savannas, and prairie ecosystems converge, creating one of the most biologically diverse landscapes in North…
