Adjoining KDH to Nags Head is a maritime forest and ecosystem with walking trails named Nags Head Woods Preserve. The Nature Conservancy in NC maintains the park. Nags Head exudes the charm that comes to mind when you think of historic beach towns. Many properties are sided with aged, cedar plank and wrap-around porches. Nags Head is home to the Sound Side Event Site, which hosts carnivals, concerts, and festivals. Surfers are drawn to Nags Heads, where many competitions are held. It also sets the stage for three famous piers. The tallest living sand dune system on the Atlantic coast lives at Jockeys Ridge, where visitors fly kites and hang glide. From the top, you have excellent views of both the ocean and the Roanoke Sound.
In the opposite direction, north of Kitty Hawk on North Carolina Highway 12, lives Duck. It is a quaint town with a mile-long boardwalk, full of unique shops, boutiques, and sound-front restaurants. Most of the rental properties are on the east side of NC12 enabling visitors to walk to the beach. It is a coveted town and opportunities to buy real estate are low while guest occupancy remains high. There is a 6-mile long multi-use path spanning the length of the town. It’s also Duck Donuts’ birthplace (IYKYK).
Further north, crossing out of Dare and into Currituck County, is Corolla. A surge in real estate development in the 1980s put this quiet township on the map. The Wild Spanish Mustangs and Currituck Beach Lighthouse are a couple of the local attractions that bring out-of-towners to this popular beach town. There is a distinct “family feel” with less commercialization and higher-end properties and subdivisions.
Tourism on the Outer Banks began as early as post-Civil War times when hunters and fishermen from New England visited because of the abundance of game birds and big-game fish. As other shorelines of the east coast became built up, the Outer Banks-ers kept the beaches pristine and underdeveloped. In the early 1960s, the Bonner Bridge was constructed linking Hatteras Island to the rest of the barrier islands and with it, a new beach and tourism destination was born.