Kid to Kid Greenville has KABOOM! Want to make a sustainable impact to your local community? Check out this 2023 KABOOM Awards Clothing Shops Finalist Winner!
For nearly 30 years, Kid to Kid has been paying families to recycle their kids’ stuff. Each year, Kid to Kid stores across the country buy and sell over 2 million items. Giving a new meaning to SHOP LOCAL, money goes back into the pockets of families in the community! Families are saving millions of dollars by shopping at Kid to Kid.
Does your family love to visit botanical gardens in Greenville, SC, or are you looking for an opportunity to introduce your child to the wonders of a magical garden? There are several beautiful gardens in Greenville. Peruse our list and find the perfect botanical garden in Greenville to visit on a sunny afternoon.
Planning out your spring weekends in Spartanburg? The weather is warming up and families will be looking for a way to enjoy the outdoors. These springtime festivals are a great way to get out and soak up some sunshine. Just don’t forget the sunblock!6
(more…)Looking for Free Things to Do in Greenville? We have some great ideas on this extremely packed list. This list is an ode to that song, “The Best Things in Life Are Free.” Make memories and take advantage of all the great things around Greenville. Enjoy!
Do you want to keep tabs on all the things to do in the Upstate? Don’t skip our giant list of Things to Do Near Greenville, SC, full of fabulous family fun any time of the year.
This article includes:
Free and Cheap Things to Do Outdoors in Greenville
Free Historic and Educational Places to Visit in Greenville
Free Things to Do with Kids in Greenville
Food, Fitness, and Fun Things to Do
Have you visited the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC? We love the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site for many reasons – great hikes, gorgeous views, and adorable goats you can pet and play with – but there is so much more to do at the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC. The Carl Sandburg home, Connemara, is less than an hour away from Greenville, so visiting makes for a perfect day trip. Tours of the historic home and access to the pasture, barn, and trails are currently free!
Looking for more day trip ideas? Check out our guide to Ultimate Guide to Daytrips Near Greenville, SC to plan your next adventure with your family!
Connemara, home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Carl Sandburg, is located in the charming town of Flat Rock, North Carolina. It’s an easy drive across a beautiful mountain, just below Hendersonville, NC. Once you arrive, you will find several trails branching from the National Park Service parking lot, including the contact station, Front Lake (restrooms and brochures), Front Lake Loop, and the wide main road that heads up towards Connemara.
One of the wonderful things about being so close to Connemara is that you can read Sandburg’s children’s book The Huckabuck Family one morning and then get in the car that afternoon to see where the book’s author wrote and explored and ate and laughed and walked.
Carl Sandburg and his family lived at Connemara from 1945 until his death in 1967. Currently in 2023, visits to the farm, grounds, and House tours are free. It is highly recommended to make reservations for house tours, as tour capacity is 8 people and fill up quickly. Tours are currently offered Saturday and Sunday only, with tours at 11 am, 1 pm, and 2 pm.
The house has been left exactly as it was when Sandburg passed away in 1967. The rooms of the home are teeming with books that Sandburg touched, read and studied. The view from this house elicits a smile just thinking about the poet sitting in his chair on the rocks being inspired by the same image. The Sandburg’s had over 17,000 volumes of books. The man liked to read. Inside the basement of Sandburg’s home is a sweet little gift shop and a room for viewing a video about the writer’s life. During the year there are several events scheduled that are engaging, educational, and fun!
As you head past the lake, up towards the house on the gravel road, and past some of the older historic structures, you’ll eventually end up at the dairy barn. This is where the goats live. The property continues to be a working goat farm to this day. Gentle, adorable, loving goats. Goats that love kids petting and touching and hugging them. The goats are actually descendants of Mrs. Sandburg’s own prize-winning goat herd.
The barnyard is also home to chickens and giant shady trees and rock walls and green fields. Excellent for a picnic. During April and May the barnyard is full of babies, so when visiting in Spring be ready to hear lots of awes from your kids.
The goat farm is unique in that visitors can walk in the pasture with the goats (and in the enclosure with the kids!) as well as explore the barn, not only meeting the goats, but petting them and watching them feed and interact. The hours of access to the barn and goat pasture will be daily from 10 am – 3 pm and is free. The entire park is open from sunrise to sunset.
September is National Literacy Month and March is National Reading Month. Both fit nicely with the theme of the entire park given Sandburg’s choice of career. So to honor the heritage of the park and give guests a pretty good reason to come there, the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site invites visitors to grab a book and read to a goat (or several).
You can bring your own book, although I don’t recommend it for one very important reason, which I will get to in a second. They also have books in a red wagon right outside the gates to the barn that you can borrow and bring into the pasture to read to the goats. We found a couple of great books that both my kids really enjoyed. The goats did, too.
Once you pick out your book, you can go see the goats. All the goats you’ll interact with are females and they are really sweet and curious and have no idea about personal space. The very first time I ever went to see the goats was when my kids were super little, they were terrified because the goats are pretty big if you’re a little kid. Now my kids, ages 10 and 7, love the goats and enjoy petting them and this time, reading to them.
So reading to goats is not an easy task. We really tried. One of the goats ripped out a page and started eating it, which we grabbed back because you know, they have special diets, which don’t include books. This is why you may not want to bring your own book. We ended up sitting with a few goats who may or may not have been sleeping and reading the books. I had a book of Sandburg’s poetry, which was wonderful to read while at his home.
My oldest daughter found a nice, docile goat with a white coat who seemed to be totally enthralled with being read to. It was very cute to watch.
We spent about an hour with the goats and our attempts at reading books. We had a blast and reading was such a bonus because books are pretty popular at my house and we all enjoy it.
But reading to goats? A whole level of awesomeness.
In addition to the home and the barns, which are plenty to fill an afternoon, there are hiking trails on the property that are family-friendly and quite rewarding. You can also take the rambling walk back to your car and trek around the beautiful fishpond. It’s a great path to wear your children out with good, honest exercise so they can nap on your drive back across the mountain to Greenville.
If you are up for a challenge, you can take the Memminger Trail Loop and the Glassy Mountain Trail up to the Glassy Mountain overlook. It is 1.25 miles, but the 523-foot increase in elevation makes this a more challenging hike. Although there are several other options for reaching Glassy Mountain from the parking lot, they are all about the same length with the same workout.
The exposed rock makes for interesting plant communities in the various seeps, and the overlook is the only spot in the park with a view of the mountains. Round trip, this strenuous hike takes around 4.5 miles.
You might notice a Kids in Parks TRACK Trail kiosk at the entrance. The Kids in Parks network is a family-friendly collection of outdoor adventures called TRACK Trails. Each TRACK Trail features self-guided brochures and signs that can enhance your outdoor experience, and you can earn prizes for tracking your adventures.
Get more info on the Kids in Parks program from our Kids In Parks Review on Kidding Around
A couple of things to note when planning your visit:
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site
81 Carl Sandburg Lane
Flat Rock, NC 28731
828.693.4178
Click here for directions for Carl Sandburg’s Home.
Currently, home tours are Saturday and Sunday at 11 am, 1 pm, and 2 pm. More times may be added during the warmer months. Home tours are currently free.
Other Western NC Travel Ideas:
There’s so much to see in WNC!
Find more fun in our Kidding Around Guide to WNC.
Has your family ever visited the Carl Sandburg home?
Are you looking for the perfect Easter Egg hunt in Greenville, Spartanburg, or Upstate, SC? We have an amazing list of egg hunts, Easter bunny photos, Easter farm events, crafts, and all sorts of kid-friendly 2023 Easter events in the Upstate SC area. Bookmark this list and watch it grow with new Easter events added all season long.
This article includes:
Easter Egg Hunts in Greenville, SC
Easter Egg Hunts in Spartanburg, SC
Easter Bunny Photos in the Upstate
Travel: These Easter Events are Worth the Drive
Tips for Surviving the Annual Easter Egg Hunt
Are you looking for a Greenville County or Spartanburg County spring break camp for your kids? Greenville County Schools’ spring break is March 18-22, 2023. Spartanburg County districts will have their spring break April 3-7, 2023. Greenville and Spartanburg parents have their choice of a few local venues offering spring camps over the school break
See our spring break camp list below and be sure to let us know if we missed one.
(more…)Have you explored the Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville, SC? You may have heard the name of the Roper Mountain Science Center and wondered what in the world this is or maybe your kids attended a field trip there. But really, do you know how cool this place is?
With a dinosaur trail, a living history farm, a Marine Ecology lab, and active classrooms you can explore, you can visit multiple times and find something new and exciting at each visit! Plus, RMSC has the only planetarium in Greenville, SC and a giant 23” refractor telescope that you can look through during special events. It doesn’t get much cooler than that!
Looking for a great vacation rental for spring break? We’ve done the work for you. These rentals on the South Carolina coast all have availability during spring break. Hurry and book them now, before someone else does!
Sylvan Learning of the Upstate has KABOOM! Looking for help building your child’s confidence
in learning? Check out this 2023 KABOOM Awards Tutoring Program Finalist Winner!
Sylvan Learning of the Upstate, is focused on building academic confidence, igniting intellectual curiosity and inspiring a love for learning—all of which make a big impact in school and in life. You and your child don’t have to figure out school alone. Tutoring support from Sylvan’s education experts can help immensely! Less pressure on you, less frustration at home and more success in school!
(more…)