Transportation for one-way day hikes in the US

I can't recommend any specific hikes (and do not even live near your location). But my preferred method is to take transportation to the trail head, and then walk back to my car (or to other reliable transportation).

Apart from the uncertainty that you'll get back from the end point, reasons are

• It's easier to get the timing of the transportation right.

• Transportation from the trail head might not be exactly where you expect it to be.

• If I can't get transportation to the trail head after all, I can make another plan.

• At the end of the walk when I'm tired, there's less hassle getting home.

If it could be hard to get transportation to the trail head, think how much harder it might be to find transportation back.

I have spent time on several sections (or "passages") of the Palmetto Trail. (Nice trail! not a lot of "stunning views" or anything, but very pleasant).

In my experience relying on shuttles/ride shares/etc probably wouldn't work, unless either you are hiking a section near one of the larger cities (e.g. Columbia or Spartanburg) OR you're hiking the northernmost section where you might be able to take advantage of the Foothills Trail shuttles, which seems to overlap somewhat.

Unless you can convince someone else to join you in a separate car that you can stage at the end, you might consider using a bike: The way I've done this in the past is:

1. put my bike on my car's bike rack
2. drive to the "end" of the trail
3. get on my bike and use the roads to bike to the "start" of the trail (which hopefully won't take too long b/c bikes are relatively fast)
4. leave my bike at the "start" (maybe lock it to a tree or whatever)
5. hike from the "start" to my car at the "end"
6. drive home via the "start" to pick up my bike.

You have to do some planning in advance to make sure that there is a reasonable bike route on the surrounding roads, but actually I think there are lots of parts of the Palmetto trail where this would work great. As you move southeast in the state, this will get progressively easier as the terrain gets progressively flatter. It can still be kind of tiring though, and it relies on you having a bike and a car bike rack, so maybe not ideal. One little idea is that when you get to the "end" try calling a ride share. If it works, great! Leave your bike behind. If not, well, you've got your bike and you can proceed via my steps above.

Hope that helps!

If you're staying or live near the trailhead and there are several ways to reach the other side, you can make it a "two day hike" while sleeping at home:

• Drive to the end of the trail.
• Hike home or to your accommodation.
• The following day, hike to the car via another route. If the route is very nice, you can even take the same route back. Not ideal, but you see other things when facing the other way.
• Drive home.

Admittedly, this only works in very specific circumstances. In the past 30 years, I think we've done this with my family about 5-10 times, and only in the Alps, where the trail density is very high (as is the density of public transportation). I suspect it would be quite rare in the US, but there may be areas where it's possible.

Swap car keys with someone you meet going the other way, preferably near mid-trail. We did this spontaneously with a guy we met at the bivvy on an overnight hike, where we had time to talk this through. Another time we met hikers on a summit, having come from the other side, and both parties considered swapping keys, and continuing on. But they were faster, and would have had a shorter distance to go, so we didnt. Or maybe there was not enough time to get to know each other. But if you are a better communicator than me it should be possible to arrange this beforhand.