North Carolina - outer banks & Roanoke Island

Tweet

Hi! So I just wanted to write something up quick of a few of the places I had been to while on my east coast trip a couple of weeks ago. I ended up driving through the southern part of Virginia, through North Carolina's outer banks, through Roanoke Island, down the "coast" to Myrtle Beach, SC, and then final destination of Charleston, SC. This first post will be about what I saw in North Carolina. *Outer Banks- located on an island (can be accessed by car, bridges over the ocean - crazy), is a strip of small towns right on the ocean. Some of the towns are called Nag's Head, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk. We drove through there while out of tourist season, a bit too cold to swim or enjoy the water and sunshine, but it looked very cool. A lot of nice rental properties right on the ocean. I tried to attach a photo of the beach in Nag's Head. I guess what's popular during the summer time here is kite-flying, swimming/beaching, shopping, kayaking. Not really sure what else (anyone else know?) We just drove through here to see it. The beaches looked very cool. Not many restaurants were open and we didn't find any super picturesque touristy shop areas. We did stay one night on Roanoke Island, in the city of Manteo. The whole island has some cool history to learn about (the "Lost Colony", if anyone is ever bored and looking for a NC history lesson and mystery all in one) - Manteo is a very small residential town on the water, seems like maybe a place where a lot of people boat/fish. Had a cute but very small "downtown" area that included ONE bar (brewery) that closed at 8pm. Was a decent resting stop between Virginia Beach & Myrtle Beach however. I enjoyed driving through not Roanoke Island, but just west of there, on another "island" if you are driving on highway 64 - you drive right through "Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge" - which is swampy looking, almost as I imagine parts of Africa, and some of which I have seen from outside of the Cancun area. Tropical, but swampy. Very cool and very different from my deciduous location here in Minnesota. Very cool. Things I noticed about NC: *Lots of Trump signs (but a surprising amount of Biden signs as well) *People seemed awfully nice here (to your face at least) *Lots of seafood on the menu (makes sense) *Even the water/ocean looks different over here. Like a deeper, darker blue. Not sure if I am just crazy or if this is true. *Driving alongside "the coast" - even if you were very close TO the ocean, due to houses and hills, there was no clear view of the ocean. (For example, highway 101 in California OR even highway 61 with Lake Superior in Minnesota). We were hoping for more of an ocean view on the drive, but it was still scenic in it's own ways. Nothing else really that I noticed as I didn't dive too deep into NC culture - I only stayed there for one single day. I would definitely like to return and explore more of the state...sometime. I did not see any bears or alligators. BUT I hear it was too cold for alligators to be out and about generally in November when I went. You ever been here? Where would you suggest visiting (and doing what) in NC?