6 Best Sights in The Midlands and Upstate, South Carolina

The area's horse farms have produced many national champions. Exhibits include horse-related decorations, paintings, and sculptures, plus racing silks and trophies. The Hall of Fame is on the grounds of the 14-acre Hopelands Gardens, where you can wind along paths past quiet terraces and reflecting pools. There's also a Touch and Scent Trail with Braille plaques.

The boyhood home of President Woodrow Wilson houses this museum with exhibits on the post–Civil War era, when newly freed Black families dealt with continued societal oppression. The home is an 1871 Italian villa–style house with multiple porches and lovely grounds.

This museum at the historic Springdale Race Course contains the largest collection of racing memorabilia in the United States. The Equicizer, a training machine used by jockeys for practice, lets you experience the race from the jockey's perspective; don't stay on too long, unless you want to feel the race all day.

Exhibits in this refurbished textile mill explore the state's natural history, archaeology, and historical development. An iron gate made for the museum by Philip Simmons, the "dean of Charleston blacksmiths," is on display, as is an exhibit on South Carolina's astronauts and artifacts associated with the state's cotton industry and slavery. Newer exhibits are geared toward the younger set, including a 4D theater and nature-oriented rotating films shown in the planetarium.

This Smithsonian-affiliated museum gives a visual portrait of the history of the 15 counties of the South Carolina Upstate, including life-size dioramas. There are two floors of interactive displays and a small theater where special programs are regularly presented.