Charleston is a city known for its charming cobblestone streets, its southern charm, and oak-lined avenues with Spanish moss flowing just about everywhere. However, it’s impossible to ignore the history that it was part of, including the plantations which have stood by for over centuries.

While on the surface you may see beauty, there was quite the brutality woven into the roots of the Lowcountry.

If you’d like to seek a better understanding and experience the local architecture for yourself, I highly recommend taking on one of the 7 top Charleston plantation tours. Let’s jump right in.

Be sure to see our reviews of Charleston Food Tours, Charleston Horse Carriage Rides and Charleston Boat Tours.

Best Plantation Tours in Charleston

	Charleston: Magnolia Plantation Entry & Tour with Transport	Boone Hall Plantation Admission & Tour with Transportation from Charleston	Charleston: Boone Hall Plantation Entry & Tour w/ Transport
Location:	Charleston Visitor Center, 375 Meeting St, Charleston	375 Meeting St, Charleston	The Charleston Visitors Center on 375 Meeting Street, Charleston
Start:	9:30 AM	10:30 AM, 1:00 PM	10:30 AM, 1:00 PM
Duration:	4 hours	4.5 hours	4.5 hours
Includes:	45-minute guided house tour, 45-minute nature tour by tram, transport to and from Magnolia Plantation from meeting point	Transportation, professional driver, self-guided garden tour, historic slave cabins, tram tour based, plantation house tour wtih guide, Gullah theater presentation	Pickup at Charleston Visitor Center downtown, Transportation to Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, Boone Hall Plantation entry, Guide
	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking

Quick Answer: The 5 Best Rated Charleston Plantation Tours For 2025

1. Charleston: Magnolia Plantation Entry & Tour with Transport
2. Boone Hall Plantation Admission & Tour with Transportation from Charleston
3. Charleston: Boone Hall Plantation Entry & Tour w/ Transport
4. Middleton Place Plantation – 3 Hour Guided Tour – hotel pickup
5. Drayton Hall Admission Ticket with Interpreter-Guided Tour

Charleston Plantation Tour Reviews

1. Charleston: Magnolia Plantation Entry & Tour with Transport

When I first arrived in Charleston, I was captivated by the friendly locals, the delicious food, and the beautiful oak-lined roads.

However, I really wanted to dive deeper than what met the eye – perhaps you could say, Charleston at its most complicated. The Charleston: Magnolia Plantation Entry & Tour with Transport was a sobering and stunning experience that I would recommend to anyone and everyone.

This 4-hour tour comes with multiple start times to make it easier to fit into your schedule, starting out at the Charleston Visitor Center, where you’ll meet your local expert guide.

You have all transportation taken care of to and from the meeting point, which makes it that much more convenient. Once you set of, you’ll be treated to postcard-perfect views, but the real story here goes far beyond lovely greenery and impressive architecture.

Your guide will share stories about enslaved people whose labor built this plantation – stories that deserve to be told just as much (if not more) as the history of the Drayton family who owned it for 12 generations.

I loved the way our guide managed to balance being honest and engaging without sugarcoating anything – just the way I felt this subject matter should be addressed. He encouraged questions and really made us all feel like we could be open and curiou, which makes for the best learning environment.

As if that all weren’t enough already, we then got to soak in the incredible natural surroundings in the area, which included an incredible 30-minute narrated tram ride through the Audobon Swamp Gardens!

Make sure to keep an eye out for gators and other critters, also taking time to visit the Orientation Theater and the Old African American Cabin. All in all this is a comprehensive day filled with valuable lessons and the reason why learning history is so important.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

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2. Boone Hall Plantation Admission & Tour with Transportation from Charleston

The Boone Hall Plantation Admission & Tour with Transportation from Charleston is essentially a crash course in Charleston’s intense past.

While it’s certainly picturesque wiht its live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, you come here for the history and important stories that need to be heard.

With preserved slave cabins standing in shocking contrast to the grandiose mansion, this certainly isn’t a tour that sugarcoats or downplays anything, so come prepared.

This 4.5-hour experience starts off by meeting your guide in central Charleston, which was super convenient and easy to get to. All transportation to and from here is included, so you don’t have to worry about shelling out extra for separate transport or renting a car.

Our guide was super friendly and charming, though I thought it was impactful the way they balanced the beauty of the grounds with the harsh reality of how they came to be.

We did the self-guided tour of the gardens and grounds that allowed us to soak in the stunning natural beauty before we had the proper plantation tour.

On our guided tour, we learned all about how Boone Hall is one of the oldest working plantations in the country, with farm on the grounds that adds a rare, still-functional element to the experience.

As it’s a small-group tour that maxes out at just 15 people, it only adds to the intimacy of your time there, with a guide in period costume to help set the tone.

The presentation about the lives of the enslaved people here was extremely moving, and the way our guide addressed the subject was respectful but real. If you want more than just pretty pictures and half-truths, this tour is for you – though be prepared that history isn’t always comfortable.

To wrap things up, we got to enjoy a Gullah theater presentation which was also quite interesting, learning about how they came from the enslaved Africans who lived in this region.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

3. Charleston: Boone Hall Plantation Entry & Tour w/ Transport

If it’s your first time in Charleston and you’re interested in really learning about the area’s history, I encourage you to visit a plantation. The Charleston: Boone Hall Plantation Entry & Tour w/ Transport is an experience that sheds light on its dark history and how it’s shaped this area today.

South Carolina has a sordid past that deserves recognition, and with well-educated local guides there to lead the way, you’ll gain valuable insight that will surely change your perspective on things.

Start out by meeting up with your guide and the rest of your small group at the Charleston Visitors Center, boarding a comfy, climate-controlled bus heading to Boone Hall Plantation.

Along our brief trip, our guide regaled us with intense stories about the area’s background while soaking in the scenery passing us by. Upon arrival, we settled into the front porch of the plantation, meeting up with our guide who came decked out in period dress.

They really brought the plantation to life with their passionate storytelling, sharing how the estate has transformed over the decades of different owners dating back to the 1600s.

The presentation on the slave history offered valuable insight into how their daily lives were, complete with their living quarters and lifestyle. The contrast of the impeccably manicured grounds and stunning gardens with the dark and tragic stories that took place here was very moving.

After strolling the grounds, we got to see the Gullah Theater’s productions, with the stories shared through song by the very people whose ancestors lived here. Depending on the season, you’ll even get to check out the Butterfly Pavilion and board a tram to see the plantation in a whole new way.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

4. Middleton Place Plantation – 3 Hour Guided Tour – hotel pickup

Next up, is the Middleton Place Plantation – 3 Hour Guide Tour w/ Hotel Pickup excursion. This experience isn’t just another casual walk through picturesque gardens, though , to be fair, the grounds are very impressive.

Behind all the symmetrical, sculpted details, this place holds stories that offer invaluable insight into American history, culture, and human resilience.

If you have a morning free, this 3-hour excursion will truly change your life with a real-life look into the place that was quite literally built with the sweat and tears of enslaved African people.

The tour started off on the right foot with an included hotel pickup right from our lobby, so we didn’t even have to worry about figuring out how to get to a meetup point! This was particularly convenient for us as it saved us time and let us sleep in a bit longer!

Our guide, Mike, was absolutely incredible to the point that just calling him a “guide” seems like a downgrade – he’s a fantastic storyteller, historian, and the kind of person I wish I could take on EVERY trip with us!

As we started out cruising through Charleston’s historic district, he pointed out different landmarks and shared the stories behind them, complete with insider details that you wouldn’t learn on your own.

We got to see Rainbow Row, White Pointe Gardens, the High Battery, the Exchange Building, the Confederate Women’s Home, St. Michael’s Church, and so much more. We then arrived in Middleton which feels like a place brimming with contrasts: breathtaking beauty built on brutal history.

Mike didn’t gloss over the hard parts, rather highlighting the difficult lives of the enslaved people who built and worked this plantation with thoughtful remarks and detail.

It’s one of the only original plantation homes open to the public and is currently a working farm, which was quite intriguing. With a delicious restaurant right there, we fueled up on some real southern fare that was some of the best I’ve had – overall, I couldn’t recommend this tour enough.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

5. Drayton Hall Admission Ticket with Interpreter-Guided Tour

If you’re on a tight budget but still want the experience of going to a real-live plantation that used to be in operation, this is the best of the best. The Drayton Hall Admission Ticket with Interpreter-Guided Tour is a no-frills experience that gets right to the raw point.

There’s no glossy, romanticized version of the Old South with perfectly staged rooms with guides reciting a rather edited version of history.

Instead, you get a powerful experience complete with the whole truth, with a guide there to retell it with clarity, respect, and a deep understanding of what Drayton Hall really represents.

This tour is also ideal if you’re short on time, as it clocks in at just 1 to 2 hours, making it the shortest tour on this guide but still packed full of value. Once you arrive to Drayton Hall, you’ll be transported back in time – so much so that it feels like history has almost frozen here.

There are no velvet ropes or unnecessary signage that you often see at “tourist sites”, or perhaps furniture that feels like they’re trying to recreate some kind of idealized past. Rather, what you get here is the real architecture and the real stories that these walls have seen.

It was crazy to learn about how the plantation started all the way back to the times of the British colonies, with the Drayton family running the operation for over 7 generations.

Of course, the grandeur of Drayton Hall is thanks to the forced labor of numerous enslaved people, who were integral to literally every aspect of plantation life. Charles Drayton’s diaries offered glimpses into their lives, adding names and roles though often omitting the full story.

The self-guided landscape tour was the perfect opportunity to let everything sink in on a quiet, pretty stroll of the property’s historic landscape over the Ashley River.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience