An oceanfront campground on a palmetto-lined beach famed for its shelling is just one highlight of Edisto Beach State Park.

Only an hour from Charleston, the park also offers another campground deep in the maritime forest full of live oaks and some of the state’s tallest palmetto trees, as well as a row of comfortable cabins nestled in the woods but with a front-row view of miles of pristine marshland.

Edisto Beach State Park also offers the state’s longest system of handicapped-friendly hiking and biking trails, including one leading to a mysterious, 4,000-year-old shell midden alongside a secluded bend on a tidal creek.

The park also has an environmental education center, a “green” building full of exhibits that highlight the natural history of Edisto Island and the surrounding ACE Basin, one of the nation’s largest preserved estuaries.