Start from 54 curated places around Outer Banks, NC, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Sam & Omie's Restaurant
Open since 1937, the oldest restaurant on the Outer Banks — a wood-shingled breakfast counter near the Whalebone with vinyl booths, charter-fishing photos, and a daily-special board that hasn't changed mediums in eighty years. Get the crab cake benedict and watch a captain eat his eggs.
Owens' Restaurant
Family-run since 1946, the white-tablecloth dinner house Outer Banks regulars take their in-laws to. The crab cakes and the she-crab soup are the things to order; the Station Keeper's Lounge upstairs has the cocktail program and a fireplace.
Trails & outdoors
Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve
One of the largest maritime forests left on the East Coast — 1,200 acres of live oaks, freshwater ponds, and dune ridges tucked behind the houses on the bypass. Eight miles of trails total; the Sweetgum Swamp loop is the best three-hour walk on the OBX.
Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserve
A quieter maritime forest a few miles north of Nags Head Woods — ridges and swales, swamp boardwalks, a paddle launch on the sound side, and far fewer hikers. The southern parking lot has the boardwalk loop suitable for kids and strollers.
Things to do
North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island
The smaller, easier-to-do-in-an-afternoon of the three NC aquariums — sharks in a 285,000-gallon shipwreck tank, river otters, an alligator yard, and an STAR sea-turtle hospital you can watch through glass. The OBX rainy-day default for families.
The Lost Colony at Waterside Theatre
The country's longest-running outdoor drama — Paul Green's 1937 telling of the disappearance of the 1585 settlement, performed every summer night at Fort Raleigh's open-air theater on the sound. Two hours, occasional flaming arrows, and an open-air score under the stars.
Landmarks & sights
Wright Brothers National Memorial
The Kill Devil Hill where Orville and Wilbur flew the first powered airplane in December 1903 — granite monument up top, four numbered markers across the field showing exactly where each of the four flights touched down, and a visitor center with a full-scale Flyer reproduction. Free, walkable, and oddly moving when you stand at the takeoff line and see how short the first hop actually was.
Jockey's Ridge State Park
The tallest active sand dune system on the East Coast — a moonscape of shifting hills you can walk barefoot across straight from the parking lot. Hang gliders launch from the ridges, kids sled down in the evenings, and the sunset over Roanoke Sound from the highest peak is the OBX postcard.