Senior Tours

Birds, Bees, Flowers & Trees

  • Spend the morning browsing the Botanical Garden at the Riverbanks Zoo.  

  • Enjoy lunch and a nature lecture with a naturalist at Saluda Shoals Park.  

  • Board your bus for a trip to Carter and Holmes Orchid Nursery in Newberry- this is the largest orchid nursery east of the Mississippi. 

  • Enjoy your dinner on the Southern Patriot as you cruise beautiful Lake Murray, a 50,000 acre water playground.  Visit during the summer months and see thousands of Purple Martins return to their roosting site at sunset.  

Small Towns & Treasures

  • Start your visit at the Capital City/Lake Murray Country Visitor's Center. Visit the museum and exhibit hall and view species of fish that call Lake Murray home.  Enjoy refreshments as you watch a film of how the world's largest earthen dam was built. 

  • Board the bus for a ride across the dam to the town of Lexington.  Visit the Lexington County Museum.  Costumed guides lead tours of the complex which includes three 18th century cabins, two antebellum homes, an 1870 post house and the 1832 John Fox House, complete with nine rooms of authentic furnishings.

  • Travel the back country roads to Prosperity where you'll enjoy a good ole southern cooked lunch at the Back Porch Restaurant.

  • After lunch, visit Carter and Holmes Orchid Nursery- the 3rd largest orchid nursery east of the Mississippi River. Here your tour guide will explain how new orchids are cultivated from tiny spores and you will see the various growth stages.

  •  In Newberry- check in at the beautiful Opera House Hampton Inn.  Relax until it is time for dinner at one of the many wonderful restaurants in Newberry.

  • After dinner, enjoy the highlight of the tour- a performance at the Newberry Opera House which is only steps away from your hotel. 

Sacred Sites  

  • Historic Columbia Foundation's Sacred Sites Tour: Experience the region's religious history on a walking tour of downtown churches and a synagogue.  The tours begins at the Capitol Building and continues to Trinity Cathedral, First Presbyterian Church, Washington Street Methodist Church, First Baptist Church, Bethel AME, St. Peter's Church and the Big Apple.

  • Lunch at the Big Apple  

  • See funeral and mourning customs at the SC State Museum through exhibits such as the African-American Memory jug and the horse-drawn hearse used in the 1920's.  Before funeral parlors, burial and bereavement was a much more personal and family orientated event.  

  • Dinner at New Orleans Restaurant overlooking the Columbia skyline.

Civil War Tour

  • Historic Columbia Foundation Trolley Tour: in 1860, Columbia lay in ruins but the defeat of the Confederacy marked the beginning of a hopeful future for Columbia.  Combine historic images with contemporary sites and see highlights that include coverage of the South Carolina State House including the grounds with 25 monuments, the Confederate Printing Plant, Arsenal Hill, First Baptist Church, Trinity Cathedral and the University of South Carolina's Historic Horseshoe.  

  • Lunch at the Clarion Townhouse Hotel, a former Civil War site.  

  • Confederate Relic Room

  • At the SC State Museum, see weapons, flags and even an original copy of the Ordinance of Secession telling the breakup of the Union.  Also, see a life-size replica of the H.L. Hunley, the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship in combat.  

  • Depart from  the Capital City/Lake Murray Country Visitor's Center, an 1840's plantation home that Sherman's Army used as a campsite.  Enjoy refreshments while watching a Civil War Re-enactment. 

  • Relax aboard the Southern Patriot as your Captain narrates a guided tour of Lake Murray.  Enjoy your dinner while watching the gorgeous sunset over the lake.  The peaceful, relaxing cruise will provide your group with a memorable excursion on Lake Murray. 

Exploring the African-American Story

  • Historic Columbia Foundation's Trolley Tour of 25 African-American sites.  Included are the Big Apple, a popular nightclub for African-Americans from 1936-1938, the home of the Modjeska Monteith Simkins, a leader in the SC civil rights movement, site of Booker T. Washington High School built in 1916 as the only high school in Columbia for African American students. 

  • Tour the SC State Museum with the curator of African American History.  

Nature & Art 

  • Historic Columbia Foundation Trolley Tour of Arsenal Hill including the Governor's Mansion; then to the USC Horseshoe including the USC President's Rose Garden. 

  • Columbia Museum of Art- Lunch on the Garden Terrace including a glass of Southern Ice Tea.

  • Guided tour of landscapes from the permanent collection and the Christian Thee Garden Room.  

  • Tour the 70-acre Riverbanks Botanical Garden which features formal gardens, scenic views and woodland trails.  

  • Spend the afternoon at the Saluda Shoals Park education center with a lecture by a park naturalist.  

  • Optional:  Congaree Owl Prowl 

Agricultural Tour 

  • Start your day with a "Southern Farmers Breakfast" at Lizard's Thicket.

  • Travel a scenic, country route to Saluda County to visit a large cattle farm in operation. The county extension agent will be your guide.  Saluda County is noted for its many peach, cotton, cattle & produce farms.

  • Enjoy a "Southern Lunch" as you meet and chat with local farmers.

  • Travel to Harmon's Tree Farm for a guided Hayride Tour of this Xmas Tree Farm.  They also have hundreds of Xmas ornaments on display.

  • Reminisce about the "good ole days" at the Ballentine Farm Museum.  This museum offers visitors an opportunity to view farm tools and implements of yesteryear.

  • Travel to the Lorick Plantation House for relaxing refreshments and a Southern BBQ dinner.  The Lorick Plantation House (circa 1840) now houses the Lake Murray Country Visitors Center, but at one time was the site of a thriving plantation.