Are there any multiple day trips in the South East with good camping access?

Welcome to the forum. SE is a bit general... Are you talking South of the Mason / Dixon & East of the Mississippi? Okefenokee swamp, Everglades & Suwanee river, Congaree Nat'l Park, Sparkleberry swamp, Buffalo river have all been mentioned a time or two... A whitewater fan might enjoy the Chattooga (aka Cahulawassee) river if you don't mind banjos.

Is there a specific state / general location that interests you?

Welcome from Pinnacle, North Carolina. Adding your location to your profile would help us answer your question as would some basic info as to whether you are looking for flat water, a river blueway, coastal waterway, portage or no portage etc.

Lance

Woodsouth, welcome to site membership! Feel free to ask any questions and to post messages, photos and videos, and to start threads, in our many forums. Please read Welcome to CanoeTripping and Site Rules! Also, please add your location to the Account Details page in your profile, which will cause it to show under your avatar, as this is a geographic sport. Many of the site's technical features are explained in Features: Help and How-To Running Thread. We look forward to your participation in our canoe community.

You might try scrolling through the threads in our Canoe Destinations and Routes forum.

There are canoeing guidebooks available for all of the southeastern states, sometimes more than one book for a state.

In addition, there are many internet sites and blogs, sometimes sponsored by state agencies, that list canoe routes in the southeastern states. For example, you can overnight paddle and camp for 250+ miles through the Okefenokee Swamp and then down the entire Suwanee River to the Gulf of Mexico.

I’m looking for some smaller rivers that might not be on most people’s radar. I’m close to 70 and can’t paddle white water as well as I once did. The rivers that I once overnight paddled have all become very well used with outfitters and lots of private property signs. Public land like the Big South Fork of the Cumberland have become increasingly popular and crowded. Looking for water in Tennessee,Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky Region.up to class 3 or just flat water.

Woodsouth said:

The rivers that I once overnight paddled have all become very well used with outfitters and lots of private property signs. Public land like the Big South Fork of the Cumberland have become increasingly popular and crowded.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that is the trouble with most stuff in the southeast. That and the Piedmont rivers are often dirty looking from the clay. Rivers like the Yadkin and Catawba have river trails but they're just not very pretty.

The Chattooga was mentioned above, it is probably the best wilderness river I've paddled. Unfortunately it might be too much whitewater.

The Congaree is another, it is an established canoe route so hopefully you won't have trouble. A trip there could include Congaree National Park and/or Sparkleberry swamp.

The New might be a good choice. While it is not wild, paddling is established there and there are many campgrounds. It has many ledges, but an experience paddler normally doesn't have to work hard to stay out of trouble.

Hi Woodsouth. Welcome aboard! I know you didn't mention Arkansas and Missouri, but the Ozark National Scenic Riverway is a gem. Add the Eleven Point River as well. While the Current gets lots of usage, the Jacks Fork and the Eleven Point are often little used during the week. When I do multiple night trips on the latter, it's often that I count the number of other paddlers I see on one hand.

Someone has already mentioned the Buffalo River in Arkansas. The lower Buffalo (in Arkansas) past Rush Landing also gets only a little traffic as it passes through the Lower Buffalo Wilderness Area and generally requires a two-night/three-day trip.

In Middle Tennessee, we often paddle the upper Elk just below Tims Ford Dam. Not many places to camp as it's mostly private land, but there aren't many paddlers either. You'll see mainly trout fishermen day tripping. A nice unknown run in Tennessee is the (also named) Buffalo River along the Texas Bottoms area. It's not wilderness, but aside from one stretch with houses, it's a pastoral setting with quite a few good bars to camp on and almost no paddlers. It can be a bit tough to access, though.

I was a guide on the Chattooga a lifetime ago. I grew up in East Tennessee and I am aware of most of these rivers that have been mentioned. Lots of water to explore, thanks for the info.

Upper Clear Creek in the Obed/Emory watershed is a good Class II (with one Class III) overnight trip in the Spring when there is enough water.

Edisto River in the South Carolina lowcountry is a blackwater river with no rapids. It has a few state parks with camping along it that are about the right distance apart for a day's paddling.

Does Mississippi count as southeast? There's a 90-mile, scenic and wild river there with flowing water and many campable sand bars. Well, not a river, I guess, since it is called Black Creek. We did a 5-day trip there back in 2016. We made our trip in early March when the trees were just starting to bud out, and saw no other people on 4 of the 5 days, meeting a lone fisherman the other day. While in the area we made two day trips on Red Creek, which we thought had even better potential for camping than Black Creek. Contact CT member Will Derness if you want more details--he inventoried and rated campable sites on both creeks.

Chip said:

Does Mississippi count as southeast? There's a 90-mile, scenic and wild river there with flowing water and many campable sand bars. Well, not a river, I guess, since it is called Black Creek. We did a 5-day trip there back in 2016. We made our trip in early March when the trees were just starting to bud out, and saw no other people on 4 of the 5 days, meeting a lone fisherman the other day. While in the area we made two day trips on Red Creek, which we thought had even better potential for camping than Black Creek. Contact CT member Will Derness if you want more details--he inventoried and rated campable sites on both creeks.

Click to expand...

An FYI on Black and Red in Mississippi: I paddled both two decades ago, and they're wonderful blackwater streams. I was considering taking my son down there for a trip last year, and when I spoke to one of the outfitters, he told me that catalytic converter theft had gotten so bad at the access points (and even at his business) that he couldn't guarantee the safety of vehicles anymore.

Mississippi Mud said:

An FYI on Black and Red in Mississippi: I paddled both two decades ago, and they're wonderful blackwater streams. I was considering taking my son down there for a trip last year, and when I spoke to one of the outfitters, he told me that catalytic converter theft had gotten so bad at the access points (and even at his business) that he couldn't guarantee the safety of vehicles anymore.

Click to expand...

Black Creek is in a remote area, it flows many miles through DeSoto National Forest so leaving vehicles unattended could be risky. However campsites abound on the white sand bars on the inside of bends.



Our original plan was to take Black Creek to the Pascagoula and take out shortly below the confluence but when we arrived the Pascagoula was in flood, >400,000 cfs. Our planned takeout was 20-30 feet under water. A change of plans gave us an opportunity to add Red Creek to our trip which was a surprisingly delightful paddle.