Congaree National Park is a swamp, and it is awesome! Well, not exactly, technically it is a floodplain forest. But it really is awesome!

The second National Park on the southern circuit of When You Wander may not be a swamp, but has some swamp-like qualities. When you think of a swamp you may think of mud, frogs, snakes, mosquitoes, and other nasty things. And you’d be right! Congaree National Park has all these. However, within its 26,276 acres Congaree contains history, beauty, and an ecosystem well deserving its designation of National Park.

26K acres sounds impressive, and it is when compared to Central Park’s 843 acres or Portland’s Forest Park at 5,172 acres. However, this relatively young National Park is tiny compared to giants, such as Yellowstone at 2,219,791 acres and Denali at 4,740,911 acres. So in the size matters debate you can label Congaree as “a good size.”

An amazing fact about Congaree National Park is that it is home to 15 species of Champion Trees. Champions are the largest known specimen of their kind. These include: sweetgum, cherrybark oak, chestnut oak, laurel oak, American elm, and common persimmon, among many others. If Congaree wasn’t protected you’d probably run into some Ax Men location scouts.

Luckily they’ll need to find somewhere else for the next season. It was established in 1976 as Congaree Swamp National Monument (I know, confusing, right!) and Congaree National Park in 2003 (where they dropped the nasty “s” word). The floodplain forest was saved from a massive logging company who had their eye on the heavily forested wetland. If wetland logging capabilities available today were available a hundred years ago Congaree would most likely not exist.

The most common animal seen in many National Parks is usually human. Waiting for open showers or bathrooms or getting stuck in traffic (sometimes known as a bear jam or buffalo jam) isn’t uncommon. Not the case in Congaree. Of course, we ran into an elementary school trip in the first few minutes of trail walking. Once the mob moved by there was hardly anyone off the 2 ½ mile boardwalk built over the wetland. We hiked for over 2 hours in the swampy land and encountered a snake, a crane, half a dozen turtles, ten million mosquitoes, but not one person.

Besides being labeled a Swamp by the National Park Service for 27 years, one reason for the low number of visitors is the lack of RV camping. Tent camping only. Yes, we had to crawl out from the safe belly of Stan the Tan Van, and venture an entire 500 feet away to a primitive campground. One camper even warned us, “They don’t sell firewood here!” Within a minute walk from the campsite there was enough wood to build the Warning Beacons of Gondor (shout out to the LOTR fans!)

With all this said, the highlight of the park happens at dark. Around mid-May to mid-June, just after dusk, masses of fireflies congregate and begin synchronously flashing. It’s hard to describe the feeling of getting hypnotized by thousands and thousands of living lights. Their slow synchronized flashing was rhythmically pulsing over and over. We waited for the X-Files theme to start playing and to be abducted (and probed, of course) by aliens.

While young in terms of National Parks, Congaree is truly an area everyone should be thankful was saved from the grasp of big business and preserved for all to enjoy. If you’re ever in the Savannah, Georgia or Charleston, South Carolina area, take the 3 hour road trip. Pitch a tent and enjoy the starlight, a campfire, and firefly light. But remember—bring your bug spray!

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