Scouting South Carolina

In today's episode of the CameraCouple, the duo scouts northwestern South Carolina to see if it's a place they'd like to live. Do they find their perfect spot? Will they freeze when the temperature dips? Will they drink "soda"? I can tell you, the answer is "yes" to at least one of those questions! 

It's almost embarrassing that we haven't scouted this area to live before... In all our travels, arguably our favorite state to camp in is South Carolina. And our favorite area to camp in is the northwestern corner of South Carolina that butts up to North Carolina and Georgia. There are several beautiful state parks in the area, and we've loved every single one. You'd think it would be a natural choice for somewhere we'd want to move!

Well, we finally got there! We booked a week in Mile Creek County Park in Six Mile, South Carolina. Six Mile is on the eastern side of Lake Keowee (one of our favorites) near Greenville. The area we wanted to scout was the western side of the lake with all the mountains. We figured this would be a good central location to drive around and check out all the little towns in the area.

​Plus, it's beautiful! 

We managed to pack a lot of driving, exploring, eating, and (of course) "sodas" into the week — not to mention our work schedules. Although it was a very relaxing campsite, we didn't spend much time relaxing! 

After a day of work, we did like to kick back with some games or a fire. It was so windy the first couple of days that we couldn't do a fire. But we did discover that dominoes is the perfect high-wind game, since the tiles don't blow away very easily. We parked ourselves at a table down by the water, and Rose proceeded to kick my butt for a few hours.

At least the view was good! 

We spent the rest of the week looking around different small towns in the area to see which one might match our speed. These were the main towns we inspected:

• Seneca, SC
• Westminster, SC
• Walhalla, SC
• Salem, SC
• Martin, GA
• Toccoa, GA
• Clayton, GA

It was a busy week! But we did find a lot of fun places along the way. There was a little pizza place in the mountains called Humble Pie that was super delicious. We enjoyed a quiet afternoon talking to the owners of Jocassee Valley Brewing Co. We hiked to a few waterfalls (There are tons in the area). We found some killer Mexican food at Papa Julio's. We took a look at a few houses. And of course we enjoyed our campsite with several fires, cookouts, chill sessions in the hammock, and a few episodes of The Andy Griffith Show to wind down from a long day's exploring. 

Did we find our perfect spot? We think so! Our top choice ended up being Walhalla, South Carolina. It's smack in the middle of the region with three nearby lakes, lovely mountain views, and just enough infrastructure to get by (a.k.a. They had a grocery store). 

Now it's on to the next stage of the homebuying journey — which is definitely less interesting than exploring the mountains for the perfect place. But that doesn't mean the travels will stop. They might even become more frequent... ​