Poplar Springs
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Poplar Springs Recreation Area is a 24 acre site with moderate slopes with relatively dense stands of pines and mixed hardwoods. The site presently offers day use and boat launching facilities, but is primarily used for boat launching and is one of the more popular launch sites in this area of Hartwell Lake. Facilities include 1 volunteer host campsite, 20 picnic sites, 1 standard picnic shelter with water and electric service, 1 two lane boat ramp, 1 courtesy dock, 2 comfort stations, and associated paved roads and parking areas throughout. Keep reading
Recreation
Boating and water sports top the list of popular activities. A boat ramp is available year-round for visitors' convenience.
Facilities
Facilities include 1 volunteer host campsite, 20 picnic sites, 1 standard picnic shelter with water and electric service, 1 two lane boat ramp, 1 courtesy dock, 2 comfort stations, and associated paved roads and parking areas throughout.
Natural Features
Hartwell Lake is a man-made lake bordering Georgia and South Carolina on the Savannah, Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers. The dam and lake area boasts 8 campgrounds and 11 day-use facilities that are operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Hartwell Project was originally authorized for hydro-power, flood control, and navigation. Later, recreation, water quality, water supply and fish and wildlife management were added. Surrounding vegetation allows for plenty of shade, and the 962 miles of shoreline provide numerous swimming beaches, picnic areas and boat ramps.
Nearby Attractions
Nearby Tugaloo State Park offers swimming, boating and hiking, including the Crow Tree and Muscadine trails, which showcase beautiful blooms on oak, walnut, mulberry and cherry trees during the spring and summer months.
Charges & Cancellations
A $10 service fee will apply if you change or cancel a reservation more than 14 days in advance of arrival date. If you cancel a reservation within 14 days of your scheduled arrival date, you will forfeit the reservation fee.
What the agency tells you
Day-use only facility. Camping is not allowed.
There is a $7 per vehicle fee for boat launching
Shelter is reservable from 1 May - 4 September. Shelter reservations can be made 365 days in advance.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Pets are allowed but must be kept on leash (6 ft or less) or otherwise physically restrained.
Boat Ramp is open year round. Day use area open from 1 May - 9 September.
NO AMPLIFIED SOUND SYSTEMS.
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER SPIGOT on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Picnicking
- Swimming
- Water access
Nothing here to sleep in
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
“A $10 service fee will apply if you change or cancel a reservation more than 14 days in advance of arrival date.” · this campground’s own terms
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records
All 1 records
| PSPR | 1 | day use | $75 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Sedalia Campground (SC)Sumter National Forest · 21 mi
Brick House Campground (SC)Sumter National Forest · 22 mi
Collins Creek Seasonal Campground (SC)Sumter National Forest · 32 mi
Singing Pines36 mi
Woods Ferry Campground (SC)Sumter National Forest · 38 miWoods Ferry Recreation AreaSumter National Forest · 38 miFrom GA 77/State Route 366, take the first right onto Knox Bridge Crossing Road/GA 59. After two miles make a slight right onto Powers Road. Turn right onto GA 398 North, follow for 3.5 miles, then follow the brown directional signs to the site. 2195 POPLAR SRPINGS RD Lavonia, GA 30643
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Laurens, SC
Typical weather
Typical October night 49°F, day 74°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 30°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Poplar Springs is in South Carolina’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Sheri Biggs (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneySheri BiggsU.S. Representative · South Carolina’s 3rd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationDarline GrahamU.S. Senator · South Carolina
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-5972.
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTim ScottU.S. Senator · South Carolina
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Poplar Springs has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Sheri Biggs, I’m a constituent in South Carolina’s 3rd district. Poplar Springs, South Carolina carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Poplar Springs (South Carolina) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Poplar Springs has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Darline Graham, I’m a constituent in South Carolina. Poplar Springs, South Carolina carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Poplar Springs (South Carolina) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Poplar Springs has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Tim Scott, I’m a constituent in South Carolina. Poplar Springs, South Carolina carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Poplar Springs (South Carolina) via campanac.com