Editors' picks across 8categories — the dock with the deepest channel, the winery with the view, the restaurant with the right wine list, the trail nobody's on at sunrise.
A waterfront bar and grill at Keowee Marina, formerly known as the Tiki Hut Lakeside Grill — decks over the water, seafood, burgers, and cocktails, with dock access for boats pulling in for lunch.
Visit ↗An upscale second-floor dining room tucked into a quiet cove on Lake Keowee — American fare, panoramic water views, and boat-up access alongside the parking lot.
Visit ↗A Seneca barbecue standby on Market Street — pulled pork, ribs, and the sides, the casual pick after a day on the water.
Visit ↗The marina row hub on Keowee Marina Drive — pontoon, sport-toon, and tritoon rentals with fuel included, plus slips and a ship store.
Visit ↗A family-owned rental operation serving the lake since 2007 — Bennington pontoons and Yamaha WaveRunners, pet-friendly boats available.
Visit ↗A full-service marina on the lake's north end near Six Mile — fuel, a boat ramp, dry-dock storage, a ship store, and an on-site restaurant.
Visit ↗A free-to-launch Oconee County park with three boat ramps and courtesy docks — the main public access point on the lake's south end.
A 1,000-acre state park on the lake's northern shore with hiking trails, camping, and a beach — the interpretive center covers the Cherokee history the lake now sits over.
Visit ↗Two hundred feet below the lake's surface sit the excavated remains of Keowee — capital of the Lower Cherokee Nation, whose name means "place of the mulberries" — and the British colonial outpost Fort Prince George. University of South Carolina archaeologists surveyed and excavated both sites in the 18 months before Duke Power flooded the valley in 1971.
Lake Keowee's water cools Duke Energy's three-reactor Oconee Nuclear Station on the lake's western shore, one of the reasons Duke Power built the $700 million Keowee-Toxaway project between 1968 and 1971 in the first place.