A local's guide to the whole beach road, from the wild horses past the end of the pavement in Carova to the pirate haunts of Ocracoke. Lighthouses, four centuries of history, where to eat, what the kids will love and the quiet places most visitors drive right past.
Between Kitty Hawk and South Nags Head, locals give directions by the little green mileposts that count south from the Wright Memorial Bridge. We extended the idea to the whole drive: north on NC 12 to the 4x4 beaches of Carova, and south across Oregon Inlet, down Hatteras Island and over the ferry to Ocracoke.
Posted milepost zone
Official mileposts run MP 0 to about MP 21. North of MP 0 and south of Whalebone Junction (MP 16.5), positions are approximate road miles on NC 12, measured the way you'd drive them.
Each tower got its own paint job, called a day mark, so sailors could tell them apart in daylight. Climbing status below is from the National Park Service and the lighthouse operators as of October 2026.
First lit on December 1, 1875 to close the dark gap between Cape Henry and Bodie Island. Its brick was left unpainted, so the warm red tower is its own day mark. The Outer Banks Conservationists own and run it, and the Victorian keepers' house next door is one of the prettiest buildings on the coast.
A cottage-style screwpile light on stilts at the end of the Manteo waterfront pier. It's a 2004 re-creation of the 1877 light that once marked the channel through Croatan Sound. Walk out at sunset, then grab ice cream on the boardwalk.
The third light on this site, lit in 1872, with bold horizontal black and white bands and its original first-order Fresnel lens. The NPS says climbs run late April to early November 2026; in October and early November, climbs are Tuesday through Thursday only. Tickets ($10 adults, $5 for seniors and kids 11 and under) go on sale on Recreation.gov at 7 a.m. the day of the climb. The marsh boardwalk behind it is a top sunset spot.
The tallest brick lighthouse in America, lit in 1870 to warn ships off Diamond Shoals, wearing its famous black and white spiral. In 1999 it was moved about 2,900 feet inland to escape the eroding shore. A $19.2 million restoration is under way, and the NPS says the tower will not open for climbing in 2026. The grounds stay open around the clock.
Built in 1823, this short, solid white tower is the oldest operating lighthouse in North Carolina. It stands at the edge of Ocracoke village, a short walk from Silver Lake harbor, and its beam still sweeps the inlet where Blackbeard made his last stand.
England's first attempts at America, the first powered flight, thousands of shipwrecks and the surfmen who rowed out to meet them. A lot of history happened on islands this thin.
In July 1587 more than a hundred English men, women and children landed on Roanoke Island under Governor John White. On August 18 his granddaughter Virginia Dare became the first English child born in the Americas. White sailed home for supplies, and war with Spain kept him away for three years.
When he finally returned in August 1590 the settlement was empty. The only clue was the word CROATOAN carved into a post, the name of an island and its people to the south. No one knows for certain what happened. You can walk the earthworks at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, and since 1937 the story has been told on summer nights in The Lost Colony, the country's longest-running outdoor symphonic drama.
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site ↗Wilbur and Orville Wright chose the Outer Banks for its steady wind, soft sand and privacy. At 10:35 a.m. Orville flew the Wright Flyer 120 feet in 12 seconds. By the fourth flight that day Wilbur covered 852 feet in 59 seconds. A granite monument now crowns Big Kill Devil Hill, and markers show where each flight landed.
Wright Brothers National Memorial ↗Where the Gulf Stream meets the cold Labrador Current off Cape Hatteras, shifting shoals reach miles out to sea. Estimates put the number of ships lost off the Outer Banks at more than 5,000, with over 600 off Cape Hatteras alone, including the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor on December 31, 1862.
NPS: Shipwrecks of the Seashore ↗In 1880 Richard Etheridge became the first Black keeper of a U.S. Life-Saving Service station, leading the only all-Black crew on the coast. On October 11, 1896 his surfmen swam a line through hurricane surf again and again to save all nine people aboard the schooner E.S. Newman. A century later, in 1996, the crew was awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal.
Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge ↗In the first half of 1942 German submarines sank dozens of ships off the Outer Banks, close enough that residents saw tankers burning from shore. On Ocracoke, a small plot called the British Cemetery holds sailors from HMT Bedfordshire, a British trawler lost in May 1942 while helping guard the coast. It is tended as British soil.
Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum ↗By the 1990s the ocean was only about 120 feet from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. In the summer of 1999 engineers lifted the 4,800-ton tower onto steel beams and rolled it about 2,900 feet inland on hydraulic jacks over 23 days. Granite stones on the old site are carved with the names of the keepers.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore ↗Amadas and Barlowe explore for Sir Walter Raleigh and return to England with two Native men, Manteo and Wanchese.
Ralph Lane's military colony builds a fort on Roanoke Island. It leaves within a year.
Virginia Dare is born on August 18, days after the second colony lands.
John White returns and finds the colony gone, with CROATOAN carved on a post.
Blackbeard is killed at Ocracoke Inlet on November 22.
Ocracoke Lighthouse is built. It's still working.
Nags Head's first hotel opens, and planters from the mainland start summering on the sound side.
A September hurricane cuts open Oregon and Hatteras inlets.
USS Monitor founders in a storm off Cape Hatteras.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is lit, followed by Bodie Island in 1872 and Currituck Beach in 1875.
The first life-saving stations are built along the North Carolina coast.
Richard Etheridge takes command at Pea Island.
The Wright brothers arrive in Kitty Hawk with their first glider.
First powered flight, December 17, at Kill Devil Hills.
The Mirlo rescue. Chicamacomico surfmen pull 42 sailors from a burning British tanker off Rodanthe.
The ghost ship Carroll A. Deering is found aground on Diamond Shoals with no crew aboard.
The first Wright Memorial Bridge links the beaches to the mainland. MP 0 sits at its foot.
The Lost Colony premieres at the Waterside Theatre in Manteo.
Torpedo Junction. U-boats sink ships within sight of the beach.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore is established, the first national seashore.
The Bonner Bridge opens over Oregon Inlet, connecting Hatteras Island by road.
The Monitor wreck is found, and in 1975 becomes the first national marine sanctuary.
Blackbeard's flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge, is found near Beaufort Inlet.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is moved 2,900 feet inland.
The Marc Basnight Bridge replaces the Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse restoration continues; the NPS keeps the tower closed to climbers this year.
The inlets and shallow sounds behind the Outer Banks made perfect hideouts for the pirates of the early 1700s. Some of what's told about them is documented history. Some is a good story told on a porch. We've marked which is which.
At dawn on November 22, 1718, Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard, sent by Virginia's governor, cornered Edward Teach (or Thatch) in Ocracoke Inlet. After a brutal fight on the deck of Maynard's sloop, Blackbeard fell with five gunshot wounds and some twenty sword cuts. Maynard hung the pirate's head from his bowsprit.
Islanders say Blackbeard's headless body was thrown overboard and swam laps around the sloop before it sank. The channel off Ocracoke's south end is still called Teach's Hole, and some swear a strange light glows there on dark nights as the old pirate searches for his head.
In the fall of 1718 Blackbeard hosted Charles Vane and his crew at Ocracoke for days of drinking and carousing. The meeting is recorded, and it alarmed colonial governors who feared a pirate base on the island. The size and wildness of the party grew with every telling.
That same summer Blackbeard accepted a royal pardon from North Carolina Governor Charles Eden and settled in the town of Bath. Rumors that Eden and his secretary Tobias Knight shared in the plunder were never proven, but sugar from a captured French ship turned up in Knight's barn.
The old tale says "land pirates" on the dunes tied a lantern around a nag's neck and walked it along the ridge at night. Ships mistook the bobbing light for a vessel at anchor, ran onto the shoals and were looted. Historians doubt it. The name may come from a headland called Nag's Head in England.
Asked where his money was hidden, Blackbeard supposedly said only he and the devil knew. Treasure hunters have dug across Ocracoke and the sound islands for three centuries. The real haul came from the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge: cannons, anchors and even flecks of gold dust.
Stede Bonnet, a wealthy Barbados landowner with no sailing experience, bought a ship and took up piracy. He sailed with Blackbeard in 1717 and 1718 and was double-crossed by him near Beaufort. Bonnet was captured on the Cape Fear River and hanged in Charleston in December 1718.
On January 31, 1921 the five-masted schooner was found hard aground on Diamond Shoals with sails set, food on the stove and no crew. Investigators looked at mutiny, rum-runners and even modern pirates. The crew was never found.
What became of Blackbeard's head after Maynard brought it to Virginia? One persistent tale says it was silver-plated and used as a punch bowl. No one has produced it, but the story still comes out whenever pirate stories are told.
Long-running local favorites from Corolla to Ocracoke, with mileposts where they apply. Fresh local seafood shows up on almost every menu; ask what came in that morning.
Many Outer Banks restaurants change hours or close for part of the off-season (roughly November through March). Mileposts are approximate. Call ahead or check each restaurant's own page before you go. Listings are local favorites, not paid placements.
Sand dunes taller than a house, sharks behind glass, wild horses, real pirate history and kites everywhere. These are the ones kids talk about on the drive home.
Climb the tallest living sand dune system on the Atlantic coast, fly a kite, roll down the slopes and catch the sunset. The soundside access has calm, shallow water for little ones.
Free · all ages · bring shoes, the sand gets hotKitty Hawk Kites has taught dune hang gliding at Jockey's Ridge for decades. Kids can take short, low flights with an instructor.
Check age and weight limits when bookingWalk the first-flight path, climb Big Kill Devil Hill to the monument, see the full-size Flyer replica and earn a Junior Ranger badge.
NPS entrance fee · all agesSharks and a shipwreck replica in the big ocean tank, river otters, sea turtle rescue and hands-on touch pools. A perfect rainy-day plan.
Ticketed · all agesA 1,000-foot concrete pier run by the NC Aquariums, with fishing, rentals, sea life exhibits and summer education programs.
Walk-on or fishing passBoard the Elizabeth II, a representation of a 16th-century English sailing ship, and meet costumed interpreters in a settlement site and an American Indian town.
Seasonal hours · ages 4+A living-history farm around an 1847 farmhouse. Meet the animals, take a cart ride and watch blacksmithing and woodworking.
Seasonal · great for under 10Summer nights under the stars at the Waterside Theatre, with battles, music and a real mystery. Running since 1937.
Summer evenings · best for ages 6+Ride a 4x4 tour onto the beaches north of Corolla to see Spanish mustangs grazing among the dunes. Stay at least 50 feet away and never feed them.
Tours from Corolla · all agesThe Whalehead mansion, the free Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education with its decoy-carving and aquarium exhibits, and a lighthouse to climb next door.
Wildlife center is freeThe most complete life-saving station on the coast. In summer, reenactors fire a line over a mock shipwreck mast in the beach apparatus drill.
Seasonal · ages 5+Shipwrecks, Civil War ironclads, U-boats and pirate history at the end of the road, right by the ferry.
Donations welcome · all agesKids love feeding the gulls (please don't) on the hour-long Hatteras–Ocracoke ferry. On the island, see the Banker ponies at their pen beside NC 12.
Ferry is free for carsSlides, a lazy river and a wave pool on US 158 on the mainland, about 15 minutes before the Wright Memorial Bridge.
Summer season · all agesAfter dark, walk the beach with a flashlight to spot sand-colored ghost crabs racing to their burrows. Free, and the kids will never forget it.
Free · bring a red light to spare the crabsA chicken neck, a string and a net are all you need at public soundside docks and piers. Release the little ones.
Cheap · ages 4+Groceries, beach gear, medical care, ways to get on the water and everything in between. Most services cluster between Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, with smaller hubs in Corolla, Duck, Manteo, Avon and Buxton.
Find a place to stay, check the ferries and road conditions, and get the official word from the National Park Service before you go.
We're building a direct-booking home for Outer Banks vacation rentals, with clear prices, every home placed by milepost and owners who manage their own calendars. Fewer fees for guests and owners alike.
A four-bedroom, two-bath family beach house that sleeps eight, a short walk over the dunes from the Atlantic. Book direct with the owner.
See the house ↗Mileposts (MP) are small green markers along the Beach Road and the US 158 Bypass that count south from MP 0 at the Wright Memorial Bridge to about MP 21 in South Nags Head. Locals give directions by milepost, so "MP 12" means near Jockey's Ridge in Nags Head. North of Kitty Hawk and south of Nags Head, people use town and village names instead.
As of October 2026, the National Park Service says Bodie Island Lighthouse is open for climbing from late April to early November 2026, with tickets sold on Recreation.gov. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse will not open for climbing in 2026 because of its restoration. Ocracoke Lighthouse is not open for climbing. Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla is run by the Outer Banks Conservationists and opens for climbing seasonally.
The Corolla wild horses roam the four-wheel-drive beaches north of Corolla toward Carova. Guided tours run from Corolla, or you can drive yourself in a 4x4 with aired-down tires. Stay at least 50 feet away and never feed them. Ocracoke's Banker ponies live in a protected pen managed by the National Park Service with a viewing platform beside NC 12.
Summer is peak season for beach days, lifeguarded beaches and The Lost Colony outdoor drama. September and October bring warm water, smaller crowds and great fishing, though hurricane season runs June through November. Spring is good for birding, kite flying and quieter beaches.
Drive NC 12 to the south end of Hatteras Island and take the NC Department of Transportation ferry from Hatteras village to Ocracoke, about an hour crossing. Check schedules and reservations at ferry.ncdot.gov before you go.
Inside Cape Hatteras National Seashore you need an off-road vehicle permit from the National Park Service. Beach driving north of Corolla is allowed in 4x4 vehicles without a park permit. Some towns allow seasonal beach driving with a town permit. Always check current rules before airing down.