Greenville readers looking to trade their phones for a paperback have a new fall tradition to consider: a weekend bunking in 1930s-era cabins at Paris Mountain State Park, with gourmet s'mores, canoe rides and a bookstore's marketing manager leading the charge. M.Judson Booksellers is hosting its Reader Retreat at Camp Buckhorn from October 16 through October 18, offering a getaway built entirely around slowing down with a good book.
The retreat is the latest edition of a travel program that has already taken M.Judson's readers to Pawley's Island and Beaufort, South Carolina, and to Highlands, North Carolina, according to Greenville Journal. This time, the bookstore is staying close to home, setting up at Camp Buckhorn, where cabins dating back to 1937 still anchor the property. Those structures were built between 1936 and 1937 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era New Deal program tasked with constructing public park infrastructure across the country, as noted by the SC Picture Project.
Beth Ables, who serves as the retreat's featured author and also works as M.Judson's marketing manager, described the weekend as a chance for a fall getaway with hours set aside simply to read and breathe in cool air, per the same Greenville Journal report. Ables previously authored “A Place Here,” a multi-volume series of zine-style publications pairing seasonal recipes with essays on community and hospitality, according to Visual Index. At the retreat's author brunch on October 18, she'll discuss her collection of essays and cookbooks, closing out the weekend's programming.
What's Included, and What to Pack
The retreat's price tag reflects its upscale framing: a deluxe cabin for two runs $1,150, while a cabin sleeping four costs $1,900, the report notes. Each participant receives a welcome cocktail, a copy of the featured author's book, a specially selected additional title, and all meals, snacks, wine and beer for the duration of the stay. Days are structured around breakfast, gourmet s'mores, lunch and dinner, with cozy reading spaces, campfire activities and hiking access built into the schedule, and Camp Buckhorn supplies canoes, paddles and life jackets for guests who want to get out on the private lake.
But the venue's rustic bones remain firmly intact underneath the hospitality upgrades. Campers are responsible for bringing their own towels and linens for their bunks, along with flashlights for navigating to and from the shared bathhouse after dark, and comfortable clothing suited to whatever the weather brings that weekend. Ables described Camp Buckhorn itself as featuring a lodge, cabins, a private lake, canoes and a hiking trail, a combination that has made it a long-favored retreat site even before M.Judson's bookish spin on it.
A Historic Courthouse Meets a New Deal Camp
The retreat pairs two distinct pieces of Greenville history. M.Judson Booksellers itself opened in July 2015 inside downtown Greenville's 1918 Beaux-Arts former Greenville County Courthouse, a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1994, according to 6AM City. The store takes its name from Mary Camilla Judson, a pioneer educator who served as principal of the Greenville Female College and founded the Judson Literary Society during her lifetime from 1828 to 1920.
Camp Buckhorn sits inside Paris Mountain State Park, a property with its own layered past. The land originally served as Greenville's municipal watershed starting in 1890 before officially opening as a 1,540-acre state park on June 1, 1937, and it earned its own National Register of Historic Places designation in 1998, according to the Historical Marker Database. Rising visitation in recent years prompted local conservation groups and Greenville County to approve funding in 2022 for a roughly 270-acre park expansion, after annual visitation had quadrupled over the previous four years, according to the Post and Courier.
Bouncing Back From Helene
The retreat also arrives roughly two years after Paris Mountain State Park took a direct hit from Hurricane Helene, which forced the park to close completely for a month in autumn 2024 after storm damage unmoored and destroyed its 2006 outdoor amphitheater stage, as Hoodline previously reported. The park's recovery since then has set the stage, literally and figuratively, for events like this one to return to its grounds.
M.Judson's retreat model also fits into a broader pattern taking shape well beyond Greenville. Coastal resorts and independent bookshops have increasingly leaned into dedicated reading retreats in 2026, including Cape Cod's “Books by the Sea” event, which caters to readers seeking structured downtime paired with author interaction. Closer to home, M.Judson has also been cited as the Upstate's benchmark for community-centered bookstore programming, a reputation that came up again when a new Greer bookstore opened this month and was compared to the Greenville institution's event-driven model.
Readers interested in the Camp Buckhorn weekend can find additional details at mjudsonbooks.com/reading-retreat, including booking information for the two cabin sizes and a full rundown of what the retreat includes.
