Hunting Island Lighthouse Trail

The Hunting Island Lighthouse Trail leads to the 1875 cast iron lighthouse—one of only a handful of publicly climbable lighthouses remaining in the Southeast and the only publicly accessible lighthouse in South Carolina. The 167-step spiral staircase climbs the 136-foot tower to a lantern room that once guided ships through the treacherous shoals off Port Royal Sound. Originally constructed in 1859, the lighthouse was destroyed during the Civil War and rebuilt in 1875 from cast iron sections fabricated in Philadelphia and shipped south.

Perhaps most remarkably, the lighthouse has been moved twice—in 1889 and again in 1969—as barrier island erosion threatened its original sites. It was relocated 1.25 miles inland using its modular cast iron construction, making it one of the few lighthouse structures in the world to be successfully relocated. The climb delivers panoramic views across Hunting Island's maritime forest, the Atlantic Ocean with its famously eroding ghost forest of standing dead pines, and the complex estuary of Port Royal Sound to the south. Loggerhead sea turtle nesting is visible from the tower in summer, and bottlenose dolphins frequently work the nearshore waters visible from the lantern room.