Leave Winnsboro on a Saturday morning, spend the day in Ridgeway and out at Lake Wateree, then hit Columbia on Sunday for Soda City Market and Congaree National Park. Four stops. Two days. The 2026 Chevrolet Trailblazer handles all of it without making you feel like you rented a moving truck.
The compact footprint earns its keep downtown. Ridgeway has the kind of side streets where a full-size SUV starts to feel like a mistake. Soda City Market on Main Street in Columbia is the same story. The Trailblazer is 174 inches long and turns in a 37.3-foot diameter, so you're not circling the block three times looking for a pull-through. At Lake Wateree the paved campground access roads are welcoming, but compact still helps. And on I-77 between stops, Chevrolet's EPA rating of 31 mpg combined with the 1.3L Turbo FWD engine means a 13.2-gallon tank takes you a long way before you're back at the pump.
One honest tradeoff is worth naming up front. The Trailblazer isn't a serious gear hauler. Towing capacity tops at 1,000 pounds, so a loaded boat trailer isn't part of this story. Two people with a weekend bag, a kayak on a roof rack, and a cooler in the back? Now you're in its wheelhouse. Chevrolet lists 54.4 cubic feet of cargo space with the rear seats folded, and the flat-folding front passenger seat opens an 8.5-foot cargo corridor along the right side of the cabin. Call it a genuinely useful amount of room in a genuinely parkable package.
What's the Route?
All four stops thread off I-77, the interstate that runs right through Winnsboro, so you're never hunting for a complicated route even though the weekend covers Ridgeway, Lake Wateree, and two Columbia stops on the far end. Saturday swings you south toward Ridgeway and then north to Lake Wateree. Sunday points the nose down toward Columbia.
| Stop | Drive from Previous | What You're Doing | Pack This |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Downtown Ridgeway | 15 min from Winnsboro via I-77 | Morning walk, local shops, breakfast | Walking shoes, camera |
| 2. Lake Wateree State Park | 15 min from Ridgeway on Hwy 21 North | Kayak rental, fishing, 2-mile nature trail | Sunscreen, water shoes, fishing license |
| 3. Soda City Market, Columbia | 35 min south on I-77 | Saturday morning outdoor market on Main St | Reusable bag, card or cash |
| 4. Congaree National Park | 25 min south of downtown Columbia | Free 2.6-mile Boardwalk Loop, old-growth forest | Bug spray, trail shoes, downloaded map |
Saturday: Ridgeway and the Lake
Stop 1: Downtown Ridgeway
Ridgeway is small enough to walk in 20 minutes. No knock there. The downtown strip runs a handful of boutiques and local restaurants, and the Olde Town Hall Restaurant is a reliable stop for a sit-down breakfast before the lake. Parallel parking a compact SUV here is not an event.
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Come back in November and you'll hit the Pig on the Ridge BBQ Cookoff, where competition teams from across the Southeast show up to cook. Worth putting on the calendar as its own trip.
Stop 2: Lake Wateree State Park
About 15 miles north of Ridgeway on Highway 21, the park sits on 13,800 acres of water. South Carolina Parks offers kayak rentals year-round (paddles and life jackets included), a two-lane boat ramp, and a 2-mile nature trail through the pines. The park store opens at 7 a.m. on weekends, so if you forgot tackle or need a fishing license, you're covered before the sun gets high.
The fishing is legitimately good. South Carolina Parks lists largemouth bass, crappie, catfish, bream, and striped bass in significant populations. The lake hosts multiple fishing tournaments each year. Bald eagles and osprey show up on the water and along the trail.
Load the Trailblazer down for a lake day and the available hands-free liftgate on higher trims starts to earn its place. You kick under the rear bumper with your hands full of a paddle and a cooler and the liftgate swings up on its own. It's a small detail that makes a real difference when your hands are full at a boat ramp parking lot. If you're planning an overnight, book ahead. The 72 campsites come with water and electrical hookups but fill on summer and early-fall weekends, and the park requires a two-night minimum for overnight stays.
Sunday: Columbia's Best Two Stops
Stop 3: Soda City Market
Saturday and Sunday mornings on Main Street in Columbia, Soda City Market runs an outdoor vendors market with local produce, prepared food, and artisan goods. Walkable from downtown parking, it's where the Trailblazer earns its second compliment of the weekend. Standard parking structures in downtown Columbia have those low clearance bars and tight turns that make larger SUVs a real exercise in patience. At 64.7 inches tall on the base trim, the Trailblazer fits cleanly.
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Columbia's Vista neighborhood and Five Points district are both nearby for an afternoon stretch if you want to stay through lunch. Five Points is a shopping and dining corridor near the University of South Carolina campus, good for a meandering afternoon before the drive back up I-77.
Stop 4: Congaree National Park
Congaree is the weekend's capstone, and it protects the largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the United States. Admission is free. The Boardwalk Loop Trail is 2.6 miles and stays elevated above the floodplain, walking you through some of the tallest trees in eastern North America. Plan for about 90 minutes if you're taking it easy.
Here's one real-world note from the National Park Service: cell reception drops significantly as you get closer to the park. Download your trail map before you leave Columbia. The Trailblazer's available 11-inch infotainment with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto handles navigation right up to the point the signal disappears, so sort your offline map while you still have it.
- [ ] Download the Congaree National Park trail map before leaving Columbia signal range
- [ ] Book Lake Wateree campsites in advance if staying overnight (two-night minimum applies)
- [ ] Confirm your SC fishing license before the park store opens Saturday morning
- [ ] Fold the Trailblazer's rear seats at home Friday night and load-test your gear
- [ ] Pack a light rain layer (SC September afternoons can shift without warning)
- [ ] Check the Soda City Market schedule for your specific weekend online before heading down
Tweak It to Your Crew
The four-stop plan above works cleanly for two adults or a small family, and it flexes easily once you factor in who's riding along, so treat the order and the packing as a starting point rather than a fixed script for the weekend. Families with younger kids might flip the Sunday order and hit Congaree first thing in the morning before the boardwalk crowd builds, then catch Soda City Market on the way back through downtown. Couples traveling light can skip the rear-seat fold entirely. The 25.3 cubic feet of cargo space behind the upright back seats handles two weekend bags and a camera bag without any rearranging.
If your weekend needs more than this setup can hold, we'll say it plainly. The Chevrolet Traverse is the answer for three-row family trips with more cargo, and the Chevrolet Colorado is the truck to consider if you're towing a boat to the lake or heading to Carolina Adventure World for an ATV weekend. The Trailblazer is the right vehicle for this specific loop because it fits everywhere the route takes you. Different weekend, different tool. Call it an honest assessment, and we'd rather you come back happy with the right choice than frustrated with the wrong one.
The Trailblazer's available AWD pairs with a 9-speed automatic and up to 8 inches of ground clearance depending on trim, enough to handle gravel boat launch approaches and the occasional unpaved lot around SC state parks without breaking a sweat. No, it's not a trail runner. Think of it as an all-weather compact that earns its keep on weekends exactly like this one.
Stop by Wilson Chevrolet on US 321 in Winnsboro any Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. or Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We'll show you what's on the lot and help you find the right fit for how you actually spend your weekends around Fairfield County.
By the Wilson Chevrolet Team | September 2026
