North Carolina Outer Banks beach guide: What to eat, see and do on the northern coast

More than 12 million people visit the North Carolina coast every year.

If it seems like they all get to your favorite seafood restaurant ahead of you, take the last hotel room with queen beds and a view of the ocean, or hoist their sun shade over the only open bit of sand left on the beach, you might need a list of alternative places to eat, sleep and play.

We’ve divided the state’s roughly 300 miles of coastline into three regions — northern (Outer Banks), central and southern — to help you find the best of North Carolina’s beaches.

North Carolina’s Outer Banks beaches

Planning a vacation to North Carolina’s northern coast?

This is the region from the North Carolina-Virginia border to Ocracoke Island, encompassing all the northern Outer Banks.

That includes the communities of Corolla, Sanderling, Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, Manteo, Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, Hatteras and Ocracoke.

Here’s our guide.

Where to stay at the Outer Banks

The Dare County Tourism Authority and the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce list dozens of hotels and motels plus condos, townhouses, campgrounds, RV parks and bed & breakfast inns offering accommodations. Several dozen real estate management companies also rent private homes throughout the Outer Banks.

The Town of Ocracoke’s tourism board connects visitors to accommodations on that island.

Here are a few options.

Historic inns

▪ White Doe Inn luxury B&B in a grand three-story late-Qheen-Anne style house built in 1910 and still the largest house in Manteo. On Roanoke Island, which sits between the Croatan and Roanoke sounds, meaning you’re near the beach but not on it.

▪ Cypress House Inn, Kill Devil Hills, built as a hunting and fishing lodge in 1946, now offering five guest rooms and a third-floor loft suite.

▪ Sea Foam Motel, Nags Head, built from 1948 to 1964, has a mid-century feel and some rooms still have the original knotty-pine paneling, part of which had to be removed for drying after a direct hit from Hurricane Isabel in 2003. One of the last and best-preserved of the post-World War II motor courts.

▪ First Colony Inn, Nags Head, shingle-sided two-story inn opened in 1932, fell into disrepair and was saved in the 1980s by being severed into three pieces and relocated three miles south and farther from the ocean’s reach.

▪ Blackbeard’s Lodge, Ocracoke, one of many historic inns on the island. Opened in 1936, making it the oldest operating lodge on the island.

Popular hotels

• Tranquil House Inn, Manteo

• Sanderling Resort, Duck

• Holiday Inn Express, Kitty Hawk

• Quality Inn, Kill Devil Hills

• Outer Banks Motor Lodge, Kill Devil Hills

• Comfort Inn South Oceanfront, Nags Head

• Hatteras Island Inn, Buxton

• Cape Hatteras Motel, Buxton

Campgrounds:

▪ The National Park Service operates four campgrounds within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore: Oregon Inlet Campground on Bodie Island, Frisco and Cape Point campgrounds on Hatteras Island, and Ocracoke Campground on Ocracoke Island. Amenities and operating seasons vary.

▪ There are also several commercial campgrounds and RV parks, including oceanfront Cape Hatteras KOA, which has campsites and cabins, a pool, playground and golf cart rentals; and soundside Frisco Woods Campground, with campsites, cabins and a pool.

Where to eat at the Outer Banks

Restaurants abound along the Outer Banks, from coffee houses, crab shacks, waffle shops, ice cream and hot dog stands to white-tablecloth special-occasion destinations.

Here are some popular spots.

Corolla and Duck:

• Outer Banks Boil Company, Corolla: Lowcountry-style boil

• The Paper Canoe, Duck: seafood and steaks

Kitty Hawk:

• John’s Drive-In: fish sandwiches and milkshakes

• Art’s Place: burgers

• Spanky’s Grille:, hot dogs

• Barefoot Bernies: burgers

• Hurricane Mo’s: local seafood

Kill Devil Hills & Nags Head:

• Beachcombers Tiki Hut, Kill Devil Hills: Hawaiian

• Country Deli, Kill Devil Hills: sandwiches Blue Moon Beach Grill, Nags Head

• Basnight’s Lone Cedar Cafe, Nags Head: creative seafood

• Owen’s, Nags Head: seafood

Avon, Buxton and Hatteras:

• Mad Crabber, Avon: seafood

• Cafe Pamlico, Buxton: fine dining

• Scratchmade Snackery, Hatteras: home-baked goods and coffee

Ocracoke:

• Ocracoke Coffee Company: good coffee, comfortable indoor and outdoor seating

• Eduardo’s Taco Stand: fish tacos, veggie tacos

• Dajio: fresh fish of the day

• Thai Moon: Thai food

• Flying Melon: Creole, southern food, seafood

What to do on the Outer Banks

Immerse yourself in the history of the Outer Banks, the site of the some of the earliest European settlement in the U.S.: the colony at Roanoke Island established in 1585.

▪ The Lost Colony live symphonic outdoor drama just began its 86th season of telling the story of the settlement — or as much as is known about it — in the historic Waterside Theatre within the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. Performances go through Aug. 26.

▪ Visit the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site outside Manteo, on Roanoke Island, to see where and how colonists lived, and hike the Freedmen’s Trail to the site where, centuries later, Union troops provided safe shelter for formerly enslaved people who could make their way there. Take a ticketed tour of the Elizabethan Gardens within the historic site, featuring ancient Italian statuary among formal plantings.

▪ See the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk, site of the first successful airplane flights in 1903.

▪ Take a flight yourself on a glider with help from Kitty Hawk Kites, launching from Jockey’s Ridge State Park, home of the tallest living sand dune on the Atlantic coast.

▪ The Cape Hatteras Light Station is closed for climbing this year while repairs are underway, but it’s worth visiting the site to see the tower and consider the mammoth job of moving it 2,900 feet to save it from falling in the ocean in 1999.

▪ Bodie Island Light Station is open for climbers with tickets purchased online in advance.

▪ The Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station and Historic Site in Rodanthe offers another “outdoor drama” every Thursday through Labor Day at 2 p.m., when historically costumed crews re-create the scramble to launch a breeches buoy as if to pull shipwreck victims to safety as real crews did dozens of times between 1874 and 1954.

▪ Get a different perspective by going out on one of several piers that remain along the Outer Banks, whether to fish or just gaze at the water below. The Avon Fishing Pier, the Rodanthe Pier and the Bonner Bridge Pier (formerly part of the Bonner Bridge) are on Hatteras Island. The Outer Banks Fishing Pier is in South Nags Head and Jennette’s Pier, run by the N.C. Aquariums, is in Nags Head.

▪ After hanging out with the crowds on the Outer Banks’ developed beaches, check out the sands of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which runs from south of Nags Head all the way to Ocracoke. Several parking areas along N.C. 12 provide access to the beach and the sound, including Canadian Hole, on the sound between Avon and Buxton, where you can watch wind-surfers or bring your own to try.

▪ A little further south on N.C. 12, visit the non-profit Frisco Native American Museum.

▪ At the end of Hatteras Island, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is closed for renovations, so might as well hop the Hatteras-to-Ocracoke ferry to spend the day — or a few days — on Ocracoke Island.

▪ Once on Ocracoke, rent a bike at the Slushy Stand or another vendor and visit the shops and restaurants, see the Ocracoke Light Station, pay respects at the British Cemetery, where four of 37 British sailors killed in a World War II torpedo attack offshore are buried.

▪ No visit to the Outer Banks is complete without a sighting of the descendants of Spanish mustangs that live here. You’re nearly guaranteed to make the acquaintance of the wild horses at the Park Service’s Pony Pasture on Ocracoke. (But do not approach, feed or try to interact with the horses.)