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Listen, kids, we’re going on an educational vacation this year! Now, before you moan and groan, we are going to learn about pirates, and airplanes, and Indians, and … it’s at the beach!
If you’ve ever noticed the squiggle in the east coast of detailed US maps, you’ve seen the Outer Banks (OBX) of North Carolina. Take highway 64. When you see the unforgettable billboard for Dirty Dick’s Crab House, slow down because you are about to hit the ocean at Nags Head. Then you have to turn left or right, but in either direction, you’ll find something interesting to learn about.
A fascinating confluence of history and vacation, after the jump.
Turn south and you’ll enter Cape Hatteras National Seashore, with 75 miles of seashore on each side, limited development, and protected wildlife. Ocracoke Island is the southernmost part of the national seashore, and was recently named the United States’ best beach. There are no roads to Ocracoke, so you’ll have to get there by ferry or private plane.
Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard the Pirate, used Ocrakoke Island as his northern headquarters during his heyday in the 18th century. He died there in 1718.
The Outer Banks area is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, due to a high density of shipwrecks. The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras is both a walk-in and online resource about shipwrecks.
The current 220-foot Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was built in 1871 to guide ships around Diamond Shoals. By the 1990s, the encroaching sea threatened the undermine the lighthouse, so in 1999 it was moved, inch by inch, to a location 2,870 feet inland.
Just a couple of miles north of Nags Head is Kitty Hawk, which became famous as the place from which Orville Wright telegraphed the news of the first airplane flight in 1903. Orville and his brother Wilbur had moved to the Outer Banks for their flight experiments due to the constant winds and the soft landing surface. The actual flight took place in Kill Devil Hills, just a couple more miles north. The Wright Brothers National Memorial is open year round. You can see the actual path of the first flight (which is shorter than a modern airliner), and visit the huge memorial on the hill. On a side note, wireless telegraphy originated in the Outer Banks only a couple of years earlier.
Those famous prevailing winds at Kitty Hawk are still in use! The area is home to Kitty Hawk Kites, the world’s largest hang-gliding school.
Roanoke Island is just west of the barrier islands. This is where Sir Walter Raleigh financed a colony of settlers in 1585. After three years with no supplies from England, the site was found completely deserted with no clue as to what happened to the settlers. The prevailing theory is that they split up and were absorbed by local Native American tribes. Personally, I think the mosquitos did them in. If DEET were available in the 16th century, history might have been different. The story is still told in the play The Lost Colony at Manteo.
Just in case you think that an OBX vacation is all about history, check out the other activities such as fishing, dolphin watching, and windsurfing. And my family ends up doing a lot of this:
Comments (17)
Comment
And just how much is the NC board of tourism paying you?
posted by Bassman on 6-14-2007 at 5:20 am
In your intro to this subject, you mention the initials OBX. We have been noticing a lot of cars lately here in Ohio have a sticker on them which indicate where they vacation. Ie., you see an oval white sticker with OBX on it and you know they go to the Outerbanks. Or HH for Hilton Head.
Is there any web site which lists all the abbreviations so I can look up LKSD or whatever other random letters I see?
The other day, I thought was one of those people until I found out her sticker of GTHC actually stood for Go To Hell Carolina… (obviously, she’s a Duke grad)
posted by Scott from Cincy on 6-14-2007 at 6:36 am
Bassman, I bet it is the same amount I’m sure David was paid by the Philadelphia Phillies and the toffee industry, Jason was paid by Yakov Smirnoff, and Ransom was paid by HBO and David Chase. What a goob.
One of the mixed blessings of the Outer Banks is that they aren’t really that close to anywhere (except maybe the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News area). Nearly 3 hours from the I-95, the nearest interstate, the relative inconvenience of having to get to them keeps some of the more casual visitors from clogging up the place (though during peak season and certain events there are still plenty of people).
I think the article is a fairly nice summary of the area.
posted by Tom on 6-14-2007 at 6:39 am
Tom - i live in charlotte and it takes me a solid 8 hours to get to Ocracoke, which includes a 2 hour ferry ride. the stars out there are amazing, by the way, since you’re so far from the mainland.
posted by mri on 6-14-2007 at 6:54 am
fyi the Wrights didnt move there,that was the best place to find wind in Dec.1903 since their place of birth & home of their bicycle shop(DAYTON,OHIO)
it was the middle of winter.i should know since i live here.
posted by chad on 6-14-2007 at 7:03 am
We are here now with another family, and we are having a great time during our week stay. We are staying in Corolla with plans to finish in Ocracoke. Jockey’s Ridge and the Currituck area have been a lot of fun. I remember camping in Hatteras and Ocracoke as a kid. It’s not so much a secret anymore…
posted by Thomas on 6-14-2007 at 7:28 am
I’ve been to the Outer Banks and it is indeed nice. What is annoying, though, is that there is a ton of high $ development on land that really isn’t fit for development on account of frequent storms and beach erosion.
In the old days, people would build cheap summer cottages and if they got knocked down, it was an “oh well” and you start over with your own money. Today, the Outer Banks, like New Orleans, some places in Florida, and a lot of places along the Mississippi builds like mad with little discretion, because they know that the Federal government will bail them out after the next hurricane. If people want to build in dangerous areas, they (or their insurance carriers) should bear the risk, not the taxpayers.
Staright talk from Sid.
posted by Sid Morrison on 6-14-2007 at 7:32 am
Anybody who’s ever been to the Outer Banks or Asheville or much of the rest of North Carolina would know that nobody has to pay anyone to promote tourism there. (And no, I don’t live there, and never have.)
The Outer Banks are just gorgeous. There’s nothing else quite like them up or down the East Coast.
posted by Sandy on 6-14-2007 at 7:44 am
I took the ferry to Ocracoke and we had a blast. It’s worth the effort.
posted by Rhea on 6-14-2007 at 8:15 am
I love Nag’s Head! It’s only a 3 hour drive from Richmond and we go there every summer. Just beautiful! Cool to see a post so close to home.
posted by Rebecka on 6-14-2007 at 9:19 am
How bizzare! My best friend and I are scheduled to go to Kill Devil Hills at the end of the month. BTW- It is called Kill Devil Hills due to some rum that washed to shore, after a wreck, that was so bad they said it would ‘kill the davil himself’. (By way of the OBX tourism board.)
posted by Karen on 6-14-2007 at 3:18 pm
My family goes to the OBX every year for ‘beach week’ and we stay in Corolla. If you go to the Outer Banks and you have kids, definitely hit Jockey’s Ridge. It’s the largest natural sand dune on the east coast and is quite a sight. The Currituck Lighthouse is pretty amazing too. 1 million bricks and 214 steps to the top!
posted by Rebecca on 6-14-2007 at 3:20 pm
Hey MRI - I’m in Charlotte too. (I think I remember you from the Street Names post) Sandy, you are right about NC - thank you for the props for my home state. This post made me a little misty-eyed. I think of all the summer’s I spent digging for that infermal treasure!
posted by Allison on 6-15-2007 at 4:06 pm
I had to move to Colorado before I realized how much I’d miss the Outer Banks (and all the cool stuff N.C. has to offer). Lots of fond memories of Nags Head. :)
posted by kate on 6-15-2007 at 9:57 pm
I just got back. It was lovely! Ice cream every day!
posted by Miss Cellania on 6-24-2007 at 11:50 pm
Yeah, NC is pretty cool, although my entire childhood I just wanted to get out and go somewhere else. Now all I wanna do is move back.
We stayed further down teh beach from most of yall, down near Waves and Rodanthe in the campgrounds. We even became close friends with a family from NY that comes down every summer and we began to plan out trips to coincide with theirs. Ocracoake is also an amazing place.
Another great thing about OBX and the NC coast is not just the fishing or the history, but the AQUARIUMS are awesome, all except the one at Fort Fisher near Wilmington, don’t go to that one… Just not as good. One of my fondest memories is going to the aquarium with my buddy from NY and watching them feed the sharks in the big communal pool with the fish and everything else, and a shark missed his dinner the diver threw at him and ate a chunk out of one of the live fish! It swam off with a that big hunk missing and all the sharks chased it and kept biting pieces out and the children were screaming and we were having a blast!
posted by JWK on 8-7-2008 at 11:31 am
Aw…the Outer Banks. By far the best memories of my childhood! My family went every sumer and we stayed in Buxton. We stayed at the Lighthouse View in the early years and moved to a house right on the beach next to the Lighthouse View. One of the worst things about growing up is the loss of a family vacation :( I always had a blast! From Uncle Eddy’s Frozen Custurd to Hatteras Landing…I’ll always remember it! The 10 hour drive from Pittsburgh was totally worth it. I would get so excited when we reached Hampton Roads cause it meant we were finally getting near the shore! I met boys there I’ll always remember, made friends I’ll never forget, and it will always hold a place in my heart!
posted by Courtney on 8-11-2008 at 5:12 pm