Green Swamp Byway

Green Swamp Byway crosses more than 51 miles of southeastern North Carolina wetlands, one of the few places wild Venus flytraps still grow. The route winds through Bladen, Brunswick, and Columbus counties, named for the 140-square-mile Green Swamp it threads in and out of, alternating between acidic pocosin shrub bog and open longleaf pine savannah. The Nature Conservancy's roughly 17,000-acre Green Swamp Preserve sits along the byway and shelters at least 14 species of carnivorous plants alongside the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and native alligators, on land otherwise defined by peat, muck, and managed timberland. Near the byway's end, Lake Waccamaw State Park offers boardwalks, picnicking, and fishing on one of North Carolina's few natural lakes, a rare stretch of open water in a route otherwise dominated by dense wetland. It's a slow-paced, nature-focused drive better suited to birders and botany enthusiasts than sightseers looking for towns or historic sites, with the swamp itself as the main event.

• Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus counties
• 51+ miles
• Green Swamp Preserve (~17,000 acres)
• wild Venus flytraps
• red-cockaded woodpecker
• Lake Waccamaw State Park