Visit The Outer Banks

Outer Banks Islands: How to Pick the One That Fits Your Trip

By Danielle Taylor
Apr. 14, 2024

Many beach destinations squeeze visitors onto packed stretches of sand, but the Outer Banks of North Carolina feels different. Across more than 100 miles of open coastline, you’ll find relaxed towns, coastal villages, and protected wild places that feel surprisingly far removed from the everyday.

That sense of escape is only part of what makes these barrier islands compelling. Their history and geography set up experiences you won’t find everywhere: seeing sunrise and sunset over water from one spot, wandering long preserved shorelines, learning about pirates, Indigenous tribes, and early American settlers, keeping kids busy with plenty of activities, and tracing the beginnings of human flight.

You could easily spend weeks here taking in the beaches, restaurants, historic sites, and small seaside communities. Most travelers, of course, have less time. The key is choosing the Outer Banks area that matches your travel style. Each part has its own personality, from quieter escapes to family-friendly hubs. Start here to find the best base for your OBX vacation.

Northern Beaches

Photo: Jockey's Ridge, Nags Head

Featured communities: Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and Nags Head

Near the northern end of the island chain, Duck and Southern Shores offer enough to fill an entire getaway. If you prefer having plenty nearby without spending much time in the car, this area is a strong fit. From either town, you can book an offshore boat trip, play 18 holes of golf, or browse markets stocked with fine art, fresh fish, and more.

About 15 minutes farther south, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills are closely tied to first-in-flight history. At the Wright Brothers National Memorial, visitors can explore interactive exhibits, climb into a sculpture of the 1903 plane, and see the marked route of that famous first flight.

In Nags Head, Jockey’s Ridge State Park is home of the tallest living sand dune on the East Coast, along with standout options for hang-gliding, kite-flying, hiking, and paddle sports. While you’re in the area, make time for Jennette’s Pier, a North Carolina Aquarium facility where visitors can cast a line into the surf.

This part of the Outer Banks has the Outer Banks’ widest variety of lodging options, including rental houses, condos, hotels and motels, inns, B&Bs, and campgrounds. The food and drink scene is excellent, too, with world’s best carbs at Duck Donuts and award-winning sours at Outer Banks Brewing Station. For families with curious kids or groups eager to explore, the Northern Beaches make an easy and rewarding OBX home base.

Roanoke Island & Dare Mainland

Photo: Downtown Manteo

Featured communities: Manteo and Wanchese

Roanoke Island is a favorite for travelers drawn to history. Its story begins long before the English arrived: The Roanoke Algonquian people and those who came before them reached the area around 9500 to 8000 BCE, building communities here thousands of years earlier. Today, living history sites, museums, and parks help visitors understand those early eras.

By the Renaissance, English settlers had founded the second Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in 1587. By 1590, they were gone, and more than 400 years later, the mystery remains unsolved. An annual outdoor drama at what is now Fort Raleigh National Historic Site brings the Lost Colony story to life in the place where the events unfolded. Nearby, Festival Park presents life in the late 1500s for both white settlers and Indigenous inhabitants. Families can board the Elizabeth II replica ship, plant crops using Algonquian farming techniques, and try games that colonist children would have known.

During the early 1860s, formerly enslaved Black Americans established the Freedmen’s Colony of Roanoke Island. The Black-majority community became a refuge during the Civil War, and its contributions to the war effort helped the Union emerge victorious. In Manteo, the Outer Banks History Center features exhibits on this colony as well as other island communities, making it a useful stop on a rainy day.

Manteo also stands out for some of the region’s best seafood restaurants. Off the North Carolina coast, the Gulf Stream and Labrador Current meet, creating rich waters for fish, crabs, oysters, and more that can arrive on your plate straight from the boat. Some restaurants offer hook and cook service, preparing fish you bring in from your own catch.

While you’re enjoying crab legs and oysters in Manteo, save time for the world-class North Carolina Aquarium. Visitors can investigate a sunken treasure ship, touch a stingray, and even sleep beside a shark tank. On the Dare Mainland, the experience shifts from exhibits to open nature: Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge spans 150,000+ acres with excellent trails and habitat for waterfowl, alligators, black bears, and more.

Lodging in this area leans toward inns and B&Bs, and many properties are better suited to adults and families with older teens than to young children. Even so, there is plenty during the day to keep an all-ages group engaged.

Hatteras Island

Photo: Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton, Hatteras Island

Featured communities: Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras Village

The southern portion of Dare County’s Outer Banks delivers the islands’ greatest sense of solitude. Here you’ll find Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, most of the beautifully undeveloped Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and abundant ways to enjoy the water and shoreline, including kiteboarding, windsurfing, horseback riding, fishing, and other recreation. If your ideal trip is a peaceful retreat where you can sit, think, and watch the ocean, Hatteras Island may be your place.

In a typical season, climbing Cape Hatteras Lighthouse offers the Outer Banks’ best bird’s-eye view of the sound, sea, and island chain. Climbing is closed for the 2024 season due to restorations of the lighthouse. Tickets are usually available from late April through Columbus Day. Visitors can still stop for photos and explore the nearby Hatteras Island Visitor Center and Museum of the Sea for local recreation guidance and the lighthouse’s history, including its half-mile move inland in 1999.

If you know Nights in Rodanthe, you already have a sense of the quiet inns, B&Bs, and vacation rental homes found around Hatteras Island. Travelers can stay at the actual Inn at Rodanthe featured in the film; like the lighthouse, it was moved inland to protect it from the shifting boundary between shore and sea. Other places to stay include small motels, condos and townhouses that don’t dominate the scenery, charming cottages, and fully equipped campgrounds and RV parks for beachgoers who bring their lodging with them.

The Outer Banks National Scenic Byway lets you drive the full length of the island and through the national seashore. This 138-mile route runs to Whalebone Junction, just south of Nags Head, and is one of the most beautiful drives in the state. Along the way, ocean views connect with natural areas such as Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, where bird species outnumber days in the year and observation platforms sit close to parking areas. If wildlife counted toward solitude, Hatteras would be among the liveliest places in the Outer Banks.

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Danielle Taylor is a freelance travel and outdoor adventure journalist, tourism marketing professional, editor, blogger, emerging photographer, and sometimes wandering wifi hobo. Her work covers outdoor recreation, conservation, public lands, history, and travel, with a particular emphasis on America’s national parks. After six years as a magazine editor in northern Virginia, she shifted her home base in 2015 to a family homestead in rural western Pennsylvania, launched her full-time freelance writing business, moved into the back of her Subaru Outback, and spent two years on the open road writing articles like this one to fund gas, food, and her postcard collection. For now, she is enjoying a little rest for her wings and itchy feet while putting down deeper roots. More of Danielle Taylor’s writing and travels can be found through her website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This article was originally posted on Matador Network.

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