Did you know you can vacation in a fantasy world with a themed vacation rental? If you are looking for a way to escape to another place, away from reality, these rentals will let you do just that. There’s a place for you to lay your head whether you dream of hanging with wizards, jumping to light speed in space, or joining some Hobbits for a second breakfast.
Leave behind your cares while living in a fantasy world at one of these amazingly themed vacation rentals; you won’t ever want to leave.
Planning out your spring weekends? How about one of the spring festivals 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!
See what’s going on this month with our calendar of events near Greenville, SC!
Do you have a preschooler? It is a full-time job to keep them entertained and making sure they are getting the best education. This guide offers a list of things to do with a preschooler in Greenville, SC and the Upstate, plus classes, preschools, and resources for your family. Your preschooler will love these activities and you will love making memories.
The Greenville area offers a lot of summer camp options and it can be difficult to sort through them to find camps that are open to preschoolers. So, we made this list of Preschool Summer Camps because there are some really fun options for the 4 and under crowd when it comes to summer camps! Don’t miss them.
Every day is a good day at Shipshape Farm! Come on out to the farm this summer and have an old-fashioned, tech-free, good time. We will be getting our hands dirty with critters, gardening, games, projects, and just playing around! The theme for each camp is based on a classic Children’s book. Shipshape Farm makes everyday moments into memories!
Thank you Shipshape Farm for sponsoring this article.
Start with our big guide of 25+ Indoor Things to do with Your Preschooler in Greenville, SC. Whether you are trying to stay dry or keep cool in the a/c, this list offers you choices of things to do with preschoolers indoors.
From art to rock climbing there are opportunities for your preschooler to take a class in Greenville. Some are year-round and some are seasonal, but they all offer enriching experiences.
Ultimate Guide to Preschools: Are you looking for a preschool in Greenville or anywhere in the Upstate? Sort Upstate preschools by programs, location and hours.
Private Schools: Is it time for kindergarten? If you’re looking for the best private school K5 or kindergarten option, this list will help you sift through all the options with location filters.
What do you and your preschooler like to do in the upstate? Tell us below in the comments.
Are you looking for a family-friendly place to enjoy a meal? Universal Joint in Greenville, SC is the perfect place to do just that. Don’t worry if a burger isn’t what you crave, they have other delicious things on the menu too!
Looking for a great date night option? Universal Joint is located right next door to Stone Pin Company. You can plan a night of dinner and bowling, without having to drive to another location.
(more…)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 2024 Easter events in the Upstate SC area. Bookmark this list!
Looking for events that provide childcare for kids for a kids and parent’s night out? Greenville, SC, and Spartanburg, SC have some fantastic options for parents looking for kid’s night out events. These organizations offer kid’s night out events where you can drop off your kids for a few hours so you and your significant other can have a date night, girl’s night, or shopping trip!
Have you visited the Carl Sandburg home in North Carolina? 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.
Poet Carl Sandburg and his family lived at Connemara from 1945 until his death in 1967. Currently visits to the farm, grounds, and House tours are available Wednesday-Sunday. Tour tickets for adults are $10 each and tickets for kids 15 and younger are $1. House tours are free in 2024 on January 6th, March 23rd, June 15th, and October 19th-20th. It is highly recommended to make reservations for house tours, as tour capacity is 10 people and fill up quickly.
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 big 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
Get Directions for Carl Sandburg’s Home.
Other Western NC Travel Ideas:
There’s so much to see in WNC!
Find more fun in our Kidding Around Guide to WNC.
After visiting Carl Sandburg’s home, spend the day in nearby Hendersonville, NC!
Has your family ever visited the Carl Sandburg home?
Looking for Free Things to Do in Greenville, SC? 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.
(more…)Are you looking for Spring Break Camps in Greenville or Spartanburg, SC for your kids? Greenville County Schools’ spring break is March 18-22, 2024. Spartanburg County districts will have their spring break April 1-5, 2024. 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.
This article includes:
Greenville Spring Break Camps
Spartanburg Spring Break Camps
Working parents need somewhere fun for their kids to go over the spring break school holiday.
Other parents want to take advantage of the extra time for fun by enrolling their kids in special camps that only happen over spring break. Either way, there are several exciting spring break camps in Greenville and Spartanburg.
Looking for more fun this Spring in Greenville and Spartanburg? Here’s your Ultimate Guide to Spring in the Upstate!
Looking for more things to do over spring break in Greenville? Here’s our guide to Greenville’s Spring Break with tons of things to do, day trips, and places to travel.
March 19, 2024, Pot of Gold: 9 am – Noon for ages 4-10
March 20, 2024, Emoji Camp: 9 am – Noon for ages 5-10
March 21, 2024, Stuffies Camp: 9 am – Noon for ages 5-10
Camps are $50/child.
Monday through Friday, March 18th – 22nd, 2024
Camps are from 9 am – 3 pm
There will also be a Teacher Workday Camp for kids on March 15th, 2024, and a Holiday Workshop Camp on March 29th, 2024. All camps are for ages K5- 5th grade.
The Greenville County Rec community centers will be offering spring break camps for children ages 5 – 11.
Camps will be at the following locations:
Brutontown
Mt. Pleasant
Slater Hall
March 18-22, 2024 – Monday through Friday 7:30 am – 6 pm.
$45 per child for Greenville County residents | $53 for non-residents
The Greenville YMCA centers will be offering spring break camps for children ages 5-13.
Camps will be at the following locations:
Caine Halter Family Y
Eastside Family Y
George I. Theisen Family YMCA
Prisma Health Family YMCA branches
March 18-22, 2024 – Monday Through Friday 7:30 am – 6:00 pm
Daily rate cost: $50 for GVL-YMCA members | $65 for non-members
Campers will enjoy activities, crafts, and more while learning about all things spring— plant life cycles, pollination, flowers, and more! Each camp day is infused with STEAM-based learning and museum exploration. Ages are K5-5th grade, 9 am-12 pm.
Camp Themes Include:
March 18, 2024, Sow & Grow
March 19, 2024, H2 Whoa!
March 20, 2024, Sunny Side Up
March 21, 2024, Flower Power
March 22, 2024, Busy Bees
March 18-22, 2024 – Monday – Friday 9 am – 12 pm
$43 per day for members, $48 per day for non-members, Book per day
Have fun and train with CESA, the largest soccer club in the Upstate. All camps take place at the MeSA Soccer Complex and are for both boys and girls ages 6-13 years old. They don’t need to play for CESA teams to go to the camp.
March 18-22, 2024 – Monday – Friday either half-day (9 am – Noon) or full day (9 am – 3 pm)
$165 for half-day and $260 for full day
March 20th, 2024 from 9 am – Noon for kids ages K4-5th grade
The cost is $35/person and the camp is at the Piedmont location, 2310 River Road, Piedmont. Register online.
Join Sassy Stables for a three-day horse camp. Camp is for ages 6 and older, and camp will focus on the basics of horse care, including general riding instruction, grooming and care, breeds and anatomy, saddling and equipment, feeding and handling, horseback games and crafts, live demonstrations from professionals and so much more! Registration will include a tshirt and entry to the end of camp conclusion “fun show”. Parents can register for March Break (Greenville County) or April Break (Spartanburg County) AM camp (8-11 AM) or the PM camp (12-3 PM).
March 18th – 20th, 2024 (Greenville Break Camp) from 8 – 11 am or 12 pm – 3 pm for ages 6 and up.
April 1st – 3rd, 2024 ( Spartanburg Break Camp) from 8 – 11 am or 12 pm – 3 pm for ages 6 and up.
Cost is $225 per child before March 1st and $250 per child after March 1st.
This horse farm in Simpsonville is offering Spring Break camp for ages 6-16 that includes riding lessons, stable care, and arts and crafts. Riders must bring a bagged lunch and change of clothes and wear long pants and shoes with a smooth sole like heeled boots.
March 18-21, 2024 – Monday – Thursday from 10 am – 2 pm
$285/person with a $85 deposit required to hold your child spot.
March 18-22, 2024, 9 am to 4 pm, Ages 5 +
Half-Day, Full Day, Single Day, or Full Week options ranging from $65 to $395
March 20 – 24, 2024, 8-hour full-day camp
Full-day camp. Weekly rates and daily rates available ranging from $85 per day to $250 per week.
Are you looking for a Spartanburg spring break camp for your kids? Spring break for Spartanburg school districts is April 1st-5th, 2024. See our spring break camp list below and let us know if we missed one!
Looking for more things to do during spring break in Spartanburg? Here’s our list of 100 Things to Do Over Spring Break in Spartanburg, SC.
Offers full-day spring break camp for children 5 – 14 years old. The camp will be at the Middle Tyger and Willis Road brances. Registration closes March 29th, 2024.
April 1-5, 2024- Monday through Friday 7 am – 6 pm.
$130 per child for YMCA members | $200 for non-members
Day camp for ages 3 through rising 7th grade. The camp is offered for the full week, or you can choose to do drop-in days. Preregistration required.
April 1-5, 2024 – Monday through Friday, 7:30 am to 5:30 pm.
$200 for full week | $50 per day
Offers full-day martial arts spring break camp for children in grades 4K-8th grade. Includes field trips, martial arts lessons, and snacks.
April 1-5, 2024- Monday through Friday 9 am – 4 pm.
$199 with a $20 registration fee
Are you planning on sending your kids to a spring break camp?
We have all had pizza, but have you had a Rapid Fired Pizza? Greenville has two locations that will help you get dinner on the table super duper quick! Your family wants dinner every night, shocker, and you’re running out of ideas. Pizza makes a great choice because of how customizable it is. Maybe it’ll help solve that daily question, “What’s for dinner?” at least until tomorrow!
There are currently five Rapid Fired Pizza locations in the Upstate! Two in Greenville, one in Spartanburg. one in Easley, and one in Anderson.
Pepperoni or cheese. That’s what the majority of children like on their pizza. It’s for this reason; that most parents can’t remember what they like topping theirs. But the Upstate has another option for pizza that can solve this problem for parents, and my family couldn’t be more excited.
Rapid Fired Pizza makes 9”-11” pizzas that are custom-made right in front of you, so everyone can get what they like! They offer several crust options, including a gluten-free crust and an option called “No Doh” prepared on a bed of spinach and parmesan cheese.
One of the best parts is that the pizza is cooked in just minutes – 180 seconds, to be exact. That is just one more of the reasons Rapid Fired Pizza is so family-friendly. Food served quickly keeps the little people happy, which keeps parents happy.
After your pizza is cooked, you can visit the sauce bar and add one of over a dozen different sauces. There are so many choices! Luckily, they offer signature pizzas where all the toppings are curated for you so you don’t have to make all those decisions. Unless of course, you want to!
Here are just a few of the combinations we’ve tried!
Kids’ meals are affordable and include a cheese or pepperoni pizza, cookie, and beverage. On Wednesdays, kids’ meals are free (one kid meal per adult) and include a cookie and drink.
If you’re not in the mood for pizza, they also offer calzones, pasta, and salads.
You can also order online and pick it up on your way home. Super easy – and tasty.
Rapid Fired Pizza: Greenville, SC & The Upstate
Check out these 25 Stellar Places for Pizza Near Greenville, SC!
