12 Highway 12 landmarks to visit on the Outer Banks

By Jason Frye | Jul. 06, 2025

Roll down the windows, bring a little sand with you, and follow the Outer Banks toward whatever adventure comes next. Maybe it is surfing, a beach day, or the climb to a lighthouse view. Highway 12 leads to all of it, and then some. From Duck to Hatteras Village, this road passes the places that define the Outer Banks as an iconic North Carolina escape. Along the route of the Outer Banks National Scenic Byway, you will find lighthouses, the first National Seashore in the U.S., the site where the Wright brothers made their famous first flight, weathered wooden fishing piers that practically beg for a cast, and hot fresh donuts that will follow you home in your daydreams. Here are 12 standout experiences along Highway 12.

1. Duck Town Boardwalk

As Dare County’s northernmost town, Duck is wonderfully walkable, and the Duck Town Boardwalk is one of the best places to wander. Running close to nearly a mile beside the Currituck Sound, the boardwalk links shops, galleries, and well-regarded restaurants along its route. Evening brings a remarkable view as the sky turns red over the Sound, but mornings have their own magic, with herons and egrets feeding near the marsh and the original Duck Donuts turning out hot donuts as quickly as visitors can enjoy them. Duck Donuts is one of the fastest-growing donut franchises in the U.S. The donuts are prepared when you order them and finished with a playful selection of more than 20 toppings. Once your half-dozen is ready, a bench facing Currituck Sound makes a breakfast table that is hard to beat.

2. Wright Brothers National Memorial

In December 1903, on a windy day near Highway 12, the Wright brothers reshaped history with a flight that lasted just 12 seconds. At the Wright Brothers National Memorial, visitors can see a reproduction of the Wright Flier and follow the routes of those first successful powered flights. The museum and visitors center explain what brought the brothers to the Outer Banks, how their work changed the world, and who helped shape their story. Climb the hill to the 60’ memorial honoring their memory, legacy and genius, where the breeze and the sightlines help you understand their flightpath. Before leaving, stop at the life-sized statue showing the Wright brothers and their assistants watching the Wright Flier lift away.

3. Nags Head Woods Preserve

Maritime forests on the Outer Banks help anchor the barrier islands while offering shelter to birds, deer, and other wildlife. At Nags Head Woods Preserve, a hike places you inside a deciduous forest, an unexpected setting during a beach trip, and within a layered ecosystem of marsh, sand dunes that may look more like hills, and freshwater ponds, including a few large enough for fishing. Six self-guided trails, with maps available at the visitors center, wind through tall hardwoods across the 1,100-acre nature preserve. The experience offers a look at what the Outer Banks was like before beach houses lined the shore. Trail runners can connect multiple routes for more mileage, while families, leashed pets, anglers, and visitors using the ADA-compliant trail can all find room to explore. One trail even reaches a small tucked-away beach on the Albemarle Sound. It is not only a place to move your legs; it is somewhere to disappear into the landscape for a while.

4. Jockey’s Ridge State Park

The dunes at Jockey’s Ridge State Park rise above the rest of the Outer Banks and open up a view once mostly known to lighthouse keepers and sea gulls: ocean on one side, sound on the other, and a slender island between them. From the tallest dune, about 100’ high depending on the wind, you can take in that perspective while watching kite fliers, people sliding down sandy slopes on sleds or snowboards as if winter had arrived, and perhaps a hang glider or two. Across from Jockey’s Ridge, Kitty Hawk Kites occupies the big yellow shop covered in colorful kites and flags along NC12, selling kites, sand-sledding discs, and souvenirs. The company also operates a hang gliding school inside the state park, where instructors guide visitors through short but exciting flights. If flying is not your thing, the dunes still invite exploration. Reflective posts mark several trails that lead across the sand toward the sound.

Jockey’s Ridge also carries a bit of local lore. Some say it is where the name “Nags Head” began, when scallywags and scoundrels tied lanterns around horses’ necks and led them over the dunes. The moving light would lure passing ships toward shore, where they could wreck on shoals or beach, leaving cargo ready to steal. Is it true? Maybe. But a good Outer Banks story does not always wait on certainty.

5. Jennette’s Pier

Visitors who have been coming to the Outer Banks for years may remember a much rougher-looking Jennette’s Pier than the 1,000-foot long concrete pier that stands today. First built in 1939, the original wooden pier lasted until Hurricane Isabel tore away more than 500 feet. After a redesign and rebuild, Jennette’s Pier returned in 2011 as a LEED Platinum, wind-powered concrete pier, supported by three wind turbines and now included in the North Carolina Aquarium system. Inside, exhibits share the pier’s history, while several saltwater aquariums reveal some of the marine life found beneath the Atlantic. North Carolina Aquarium staff offer talks and hands-on ecology and environmental programs, but many visitors arrive to fish or to walk all the way to the end for an Outer Banks view found nowhere else.

6. Bodie Island Lighthouse

Heading south on Highway 12 out of Nags Head, signs for the Outer Banks National Scenic Byway begin to appear. At that point, the drive enters a nationally recognized natural landscape, where small villages carry historical meaning and roles in the American story that stretch across four centuries. Watch for places to pause along the way. A few miles south into Cape Hatteras National Seashore, not far from Jennette’s Pier, the black crown of Bodie Island Lighthouse rises above the pines. A climb up this 170-foot, black-banded lighthouse gives visitors a sense of the nightly work once done by lighthouse keepers and reveals the offshore sandbars and shoals that can be hard to see from the ground.

Outside, the bold black and white horizontal bands stand out for a reason: distinctive paint patterns helped ships identify lighthouses from the water. The former lighthouse keeper’s cottage now houses a museum, and tickets are available for the climb. One note before the spiral stairs: Bodie is pronounced like body, as in a body of water, not like Bodhi, Patrick Swayze’s character from Point Break. While visiting, you can climb the tower, tour the small museum, look for wildlife, find a strong photo angle from the overlook and pond north of the lighthouse, or fish in the marsh creeks and nearby Roanoke Sound. A picnic lunch in the lighthouse’s shadow also fits the setting perfectly.

7. Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station

In Rodanthe, Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station marks the place where the U.S. Coast Guard first established a presence in North Carolina. From this station, and others along the Outer Banks, crews watched for vessels in trouble and launched rescues when needed. Visitors may see costumed reenactors demonstrate the Breeches Buoy Drill, an old and fascinating rescue method, and can tour the museum, view a life-saving service rescue boat, and explore historic outbuildings. Dating from 1874-1911, the buildings reflect two eras of design and include architectural details echoed across the Outer Banks. A modern example inspired by Life-Saving Station architecture stands in Kill Devil Hills at Outer Banks Brewing Station, the world’s first wind-powered brew pub and a welcoming stop for a pint and fresh seafood.

8. Ride the waves in more than one way

Surfers come to the Outer Banks in every season, chasing waves from Duck to Hatteras Village. The quieter beaches and steady swells of Hatteras Island make it an especially good place for a surf session, or for a first lesson. REAL Watersports, Kitty Hawk Kites, and roughly a dozen other instructors and outfitters teach beginners and help experienced surfers refine their skills. Surfing is not the only way to hang 10 here, either. Standup paddleboarding and standup paddle-surfing put visitors on the Sound or into the Atlantic for another kind of water experience. For more speed and lift, kiteboarders gather soundside along Hatteras Island, fastening their feet to a small board similar to a wakeboard and clipping into a harness attached to a large kite. The wind takes over as they skim, jump, spin, and ride across wind and waves. At REAL Watersports, instructors can get newcomers started and moving quickly.

9. Classic wooden piers

On the Outer Banks, fishing can mean inshore, offshore, freshwater, saltwater, surfcasting, or spearfishing while SCUBA or freediving. For a classic pier experience, two especially nostalgic options are Rodanthe Fishing Pier and Avon Fishing pier, located in the Hatteras Island villages of Rodanthe and Avon. They are part of Outer Banks history and among the last wooden piers remaining in North Carolina. Kitty Hawk Pier, Avalon Pier in Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head Fishing Pier, and Outer Banks Fishing Pier in south Nags Head complete the historic wooden group of original piers. Extending hundreds of feet over the Atlantic, their thick planks and heavy pilings put anglers close to deeper water and strong chances at a keeper. Unlike surf fishing from the beach, a fishing license is not needed to fish from these piers, though there is a small fee to fish and a smaller fee to walk out for a look. The catch changes with the season, but possible fish include flounder, wahoo, Spanish mackerel, bluefish, sea bass, cobia, sting rays, and even sharks.

10. See the shore from the saddle

A century ago, Highway 12 had not yet become reality. Official roads were scarce on the Outer Banks, automobiles were even rarer, and horseback travel was the practical choice. Today, visitors can still ride through dunes and along Cape Hatteras National Seashore with Equine Adventures, Buxton Stables, Hatteras Island Horseback Riding, and others. These outfitters help riders get comfortable in the saddle, then set out across hardpacked sand, through shallow surf, and along stretches where gulls lift away ahead. Experienced riders may find a rush in a fast run by the water, while beginners may discover an entirely new way to fall for the Outer Banks.

11. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

The black and white spiral of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has guided and inspired generations of Outer Banks families, visitors, and sailors. A visit to the tallest brick lighthouse in the nation is an Outer Banks essential. The current tower, though, was not the first light built to warn mariners about Diamond Shoals, the ominously named hazards stretching more than fourteen miles beneath the surface from Cape Hatteras. The lighthouse standing today was completed in 1870, replacing a smaller tower from 1803. From the catwalk at the top of the 198’ structure, visitors can picture the earlier lighthouse’s former location, now washed by waves beyond the breakers. Even the present Cape Hatteras Lighthouse nearly fell victim to the sea before it was moved a half mile inland to its current site in 1999. Leave time for the keeper’s cottages, now used as a museum, and check out the Junior Ranger’s Program and the National Parks Passport stamp during the visit.

12. Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum

The Outer Banks carries a haunting nickname: The Graveyard of the Atlantic. Over the centuries, hidden shoals and sandbars have sent hundreds of ships to the bottom, and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and Bodie Island Lighthouse help sailors avoid becoming part of that history. At the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras Village, stories unfold about shipwrecks, German U-Boats in World War II, pirates and plunder, fishing families, and Civil War battles. The museum brings together wreck artifacts, photographs, tintypes, firsthand accounts, and legends shaped by time. While inside, visitors remain only a short walk from the ocean. Afterward, a beach walk may turn up shells, sea glass, driftwood, or, rarely, some treasure freed from a wreck and left onshore. The museum is currently undergoing renovations and expected to reopen May 2024.

By Jason Frye in partnership with the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau.

Author

Jason Frye first fell for The Outer Banks during the summer of 1990, when his family traveled from the mountains of West Virginia to the North Carolina coast for a change of scenery. A single week on the OBX was not enough, so when he had the chance, Jason moved to North Carolina and began exploring and writing about the state from the Outer Banks to the Smoky Mountains. His heart, though, remains here on the coast. He now lives in Wilmington and visits the Outer Banks whenever he can, writing about travel, food, and all things North Carolina. His travel guide is Moon North Carolina Coast, and he also shares travels on Instagram as @beardedwriter.

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