We love international travel, but we also enjoy an occasional road trip to check out a U.S. destination. Most recently, we packed up the family (including the dog) and drove the long 11 hours from Massachusetts to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. It was a fairly easy road trip – especially now that our children don’t fight as much in the car and we have a teenager to help with the driving!
We are a very active family and like to get the most out of our visits to new places. So, we had a pretty long list of activities all set weeks before we even left. We left it up to the weather to determine which location we visited on each day.
Wright Brothers National Memorial
First stop was a visit to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills. The memorial commemorates the first successful, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine. My family boards a plane at least once a year so, it was fairly interesting to see where and how flight got its start. There’s a small indoor museum and a large outdoor area with multiple exhibits to really immerse you in what those first flights were like. You can stand in the spot where Orville and Wilbur first took flight and the locations where they landed. There’s also a reconstructed hangar and living quarter showing what camp life was like. Take a stroll up to the commemorative monument located on top of the historic Kill Devil Hill where the Wright brothers did their gliding experiments. Finally, step into history by visiting an artistic representation of the moment of the first flight. This spot is a great photo op as they encourage you to touch and climb on the sculpture. If traveling with children, you can pick up an interactive US National Parks packet to make learning more fun and they get a Junior Ranger wooden badge pin when they turn in the packet.
Jockey’s Ridge State Park
Next stop was Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head. Here you’ll find the tallest living sand dunes on the Atlantic coast! Definitely not somewhere I would suggest visiting on a very hot or windy day but it was perfect the day we picked. The park is free to visit and is a great location to go for a walk, fly a kite or learn to hang glide (lessons are available). With a beautiful view from the ocean to Roanoke Sound it’s also a great place to sight see or catch one of the best sunsets in OBX. There’s also a small visitor center with a museum located at the entrance. We all really enjoyed our visit. Walking through the expansive sand area felt like we were making our way through a desert! The kids especially enjoyed running and rolling down the massive sandy hills. The park was one of my favorite places we visited and should be added to everyone’s not to miss list!
Ocracoke Island
Before leaving home I read about a free car and passenger ferry to Ocracoke Island. We jumped at the opportunity to combine a boat ride with more exploring. There was about an hour wait for the ferry but it was worth it. Upon arrival we took the time to drive in through the main part of the village before stopping for a delicious waterside lunch. Most people get around the island on a golf cart so we decided to be like the locals and rented a golf cart for an hour. It was something different and really fun to cruise around on while exploring back streets and the Ocracoke Lighthouse. I’d also heard the island was known for having beautiful shells so we made a beach stop before catching the ferry back to the mainland. The beaches were gorgeous and seemed to go on forever. We took our time feeling the sand in our toes, watching the hundreds of plovers at the water’s edge and found some beautiful shells. It really was a neat little island!
Corolla
We couldn’t visit the outer banks without checking out the famous wild houses in Corolla! There’s many companies that offer tours driving you onto the beach to view the horses. My husband, being the daredevil he is, chose to drive our car onto the beach and do our own tour. Note he did a lot of research about it first like how much air to take out of the tires and what to do if we got stuck in the sand. It was very cool yet scary at times – we did not want to get stuck! We did come across quite a few horses which were so beautiful to see, and even parked on the beach for a few hours to enjoy the sunshine and salty air.
Lighthouses
If you’re a lighthouse aficionado the Outer Banks is the place for you! There are five lighthouses all unique and special in their own way. We made sure to check out as many as we could. We got to Bodie Island Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras (tallest lighthouse in the US), Ocracoke and ended our lighthouse tour with a stop at Currituck Beach Lighthouse before heading onto the beach in Corolla. You can normally climb Bodie and Cape Hatteras but they were unfortunately both closed for maintenance while we were there.
Beach
Many head to the Outer Banks just to enjoy the gorgeous, expansive beaches but since we’re lucky enough to have beautiful beaches at home that was not a top priority for us. However, the beaches we visited were all gorgeous and I could definitely see myself spending days soaking up the sun there.
Bonus Donut Stop
Not a tourist attraction but in my research, I came across a place called Duck Donuts that I immediately knew had to be added to our must visit list! It’s a unique donut shop where customers watch the donuts being made to order and then choose their own toppings. There’s lists of glazes, sauces and toppings that you combine to make your own perfect combination. My favorite was the chocolate glaze with raspberry topping Mmmm so good! We grabbed breakfast from here twice! Calories don’t count on vacation right…
We caught some amazing sunrises and even tried our luck at catching some ghost crabs after the sunset. We loved spending our days outside and it was great to get to include our pup in our travels. Outer Banks was one of the most dog friendly places we’ve ever travelled. Overall it was a great family trip where we got to unplug, make new memories and learn some stuff along the way.
