Family Adventures in the Outer Banks: Part 2

Our adventures continue to Corolla and Kitty Hawk!

If you haven’t already, be sure to read Family Adventures in the Outer Banks: Part 1.

Corolla

After exploring Duck, we headed north to the beaches of Corolla and south to the beaches of Kitty Hawk!

Corolla is a historic town located in the northernmost part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, very close to the end of NC-12 and the Virginia border.

The coast in Corolla is lined with colorful beachfront cottages, a few larger resorts, and even a couple chain hotels. There are also recognizable shops peppered in between the locally owned ones.

In fact, I read in one of our Outer Banks guides there are 70+ shops in Corolla! This was a huge surprise, even after visiting. Corolla feels quite secluded, especially the beaches.

the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, a red brick lighthouse, is visible through pine trees

One attraction we didn’t want to miss was The Currituck Beach Lighthouse. It’s one of many lighthouses in the Outer Banks. I think its brick exterior is especially beautiful.

The interior wasn’t open to visitors when we visited, but, looking at that height, I was a bit relieved! It’s over 160 feet tall, which translates into over 200 (very small, very winding) stairs. When available, it’s $10.00 per person to climb to the top. Just around the corner is Historic Corolla, which we drove through on our way out.

an unobstructed view of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse

We made our way to Historic Corolla Park, a beautiful soundside park with a bridge, gazebo, and several low-growing oaks that are perfect for climbing. We spotted birds, squirrels, and even a rabbit!

a wooden bridge lined with trees crosses an inlet while picnic tables surround

Adjacent to that is the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education. We were too late for admission, a real disappointment after seeing the fossil outside! It will go on our list for next time.

a whale skull on a a palette in front of the Center for Wildlife Education

Corolla has several beach access sites with ample parking. We enjoyed our time at the beaches here a bit more than in Duck. This could largely be due to the time of day or weather, though.

We liked that there were fewer people (though neither beach had many) and we found significantly more shells, especially perfect, unbroken ones! We also spotted several dolphins and found a sand dollar near the shore, two particularly magical touches to an already enjoyable day.

Our hope was to also see some feral horses, but unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards for us! Between the wildlife, sand, and surf, the kids didn’t even seem to mind.

a stingray washed ashore in front of the surf

Kitty Hawk

Later in the week we headed south to spend a short afternoon in Kitty Hawk. There’s a series of kite shops in the Outer Banks called Kitty Hawk kites and it’s easy to see why it originated here. The wind is consistent (yes, even more so than other coasts!) and strong.

The Wright Brothers also figured this out, which is why the first flight experiments were conducted here. Kitty Hawk is home to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, which closes at 5:00PM all year. Again, we narrowly missed the admission cutoff, an unfortunate byproduct of virtual schooling/waiting until 3:00PM to begin our explorations.

a young girl runs across the beach pulling a kite

Before our trip, I’d purchased color-your-own kites with the environment in mind. Creating them gave us several hours of quiet entertainment on our first rainy night. We enjoyed flying kites in Kitty Hawk, too, though we didn’t ever get ours to fly high and consistently. Either they were poorly designed, the wind was too strong, or we are simply amateurs!

Though we were only a few miles from Corolla, the sand and shore were noticeably different in Kitty Hawk. While Corolla had powdery beaches littered with whole, unbroken shells, Kitty Hawk’s shore had a steep drop from the dunes and broken shells made up a noticeable portion of the coarse sand.

Corolla also had a wider variety of wildlife, but we saw nearly fifty pelicans in Kitty Hawk!