favorite places #6 the outer banks

The Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The Outer Banks have long been a favorite destination of mine. I used to head off to Nags Head, now more likely to Ocracoke. The towns may change but the reasons are the same...time to relax, space to breathe in, days filled with reading, napping and wandering.

 My very first visit to the Outer Banks was when I was ten years old. It was an unusual vacation destination given that we lived in Louisville, Ky and that most middle class families in Louisville packed up the car and drove to the Redneck Riviera  (the Gulf coast of Florida) for a beach trip. It would be several years later that I returned again. My family moved to Norfolk, Va when I was in high school and began making regular pilgrimages southward...Thanksgiving holidays in a rented house on the oceanfront (the fantastic old kind with cedar shake shingles and a wrap around porch but no indoor shower!), early morning drives for fishing for the day and the occasional midnight drive to see the sun come up with my friend Jonas. Nevermind that we lived only a twenty minute ride from the Virginia Beach oceanfront, everyone who was anyone knew that the beach down in the Outer Banks was so much better.

As an adult I began to spend my own vacations in a rented house overlooking the beach. I learned that in the fall you can get an amazing deal on a beachfront house and still have wonderful weather for walking and relaxing in September and October. I looked forward to packing up the car with a weeks worth of stuff, books to read, putting the dogs in the backseat and hitting the road.

The appeal of the Outer Banks was it's desolation. In the fall you could sometimes walk the beach for miles without seeing more than a handful of  other people. Alot of the stores had cut rate clearance sales on souvieners and summer merchandise and then closed down for the winter. These days so much of that magic is gone. There are strip malls and fast food joints and hordes of people year round now. In order to catch that bit of magic and solitude it has become necessary to head furthur and futhrut south. No longer is Nags Head my destination of choice along the Outer Banks. You need to keep driving past Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head. Go past the Bodie Island lighthouse and head out over the causeway to Hatteras Island. Keep on driving past Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo. Keep on driving still past Avon, Buxton and Frisco. Finally when you reach Hatteras Village drive on board the ferry and settle in for a little trip over to Ocracoke Island.

Ocracoke has become the destination of choice these days. No fast food. No strip malls. Virtually no traffic. Just lots of bicyles, shady old houses with screened in porches, little cemeteries tucked into every corner, nature trails and a beach that is a protected habitat meaning no high rise hotels either. That old timey, small town, beach vibe.

Nags Head in years gone by...

 Mose, Ford and Madison. This was the view from one of the best rentals I ever had.

 

 Dogs + beach house = a laid back vacation.

 Woods at the beach, yes it is possible.

The Sound side.

 On the ferry...on the way to Ocracoke.

 Springer's Point...my very favorite place on all of the Outer Banks. A maritime forest AND the home of the ghost of Blackbeard. During a battle on the water off of the shore here where Blackbeard was beheaded his body was thrown overboard. Legend has it that his headless body swam seven times around the ship where he died and then made it to shore where he has lingered ever since...

One last personal fave on the Outer Banks...Manteo's  Elizabethian Gardens.

And while in Manteo look for Andy Griffith. I've never seen him personally but I'm told that Manteo is where he lives...

 Virginia Dare.

Coming soon...Whitby, England

<div style='text-align:center;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;font-weight:normal;margin:10px;padding:0;line-height:normal'><a href='http://www.dwellable.com/a/2683/Outer-Banks/Hatteras-Island/Waves/Vacation-Rentals' style='border:none'><img src='http://www.dwellable.com/dwellback/2683.jpg' style='width:102px;height:20px;border:none;margin:0;padding:0'><br>Waves on Dwellable</a></div>