Blackbeard never really left this 300-year-old waterfront town in North Carolina

Beaufort’s got pirates, ponies and a free museum

Beaufort, North Carolina, sits on the Crystal Coast, and it’s been there longer than most American towns you’ve heard of. Founded in 1709, it’s the third-oldest town in the state, but it doesn’t feel like a museum piece.

It feels like a place people actually love living in.

About 4,000 people call it home year-round, and the waterfront fills up fast once the weather turns warm. One thing before you go: locals say “BO-furt,” not “BYOO-furt.”

That’s South Carolina. This one’s different in just about every way.

The 1713 street grid that’s still standing today

Before Beaufort had a name, it had fish. The settlement started as a fishing village and port in the late 1600s, drawing in merchants, craftsmen, privateers and patriots.

By 1713, someone had drawn up a formal town plan, and that 12-block grid still exists today, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Walk it and you’ll pass about 150 restored homes, each one marked with a plaque showing the earliest known owner and the date it went up.

The architectural styles lean Bahamian and West Indian, which tells you something about who was coming and going through this port.

Front Street, where the harbor traffic never really stops

Front Street runs along Taylor’s Creek and covers the heart of downtown in about a 10-minute walk.

Boutiques and art galleries sit alongside maritime supply shops and restaurants where the seafood comes off boats you can see from your table.

Out on the boardwalk, sailboats and working vessels move through the harbor all day. Ferry docks line the waterfront, with boats heading to Shackleford Banks, Carrot Island and Cape Lookout.

Budget Travel once called Beaufort “America’s Coolest Small Town,” and Travel + Leisure named it “America’s Favorite Town.” The view from the boardwalk makes it easy to see why.

Blackbeard’s cannons are on display and free to see

The North Carolina Maritime Museum sits right on Front Street in a cedar-shingled building, and it won’t cost you anything to walk in.

It holds the official collection of artifacts from Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which ran aground near Beaufort Inlet in June 1718. More than 300 restored pieces are on display.

Private company Intersal, Inc. discovered the wreck in 1996, and recovery work has been going on ever since.

The museum also covers lighthouses, lifesaving stations, the seafood industry, and a seashell collection with around 5,000 specimens from over 100 countries.

Cross the street and you’ll find the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, where volunteers build and restore traditional wooden boats.

The girl buried in a barrel of rum on Ann Street

The Old Burying Ground sits on the 400 block of Ann Street, established in the early 1700s and deeded to the town in 1731.

Stone had to be shipped in by sailing vessel back then, so many graves are marked with shell, brick or wood instead. Captain Otway Burns, a privateer hero of the War of 1812, is buried here.

So is Colonel William Thompson, who commanded troops in the Revolution. The grave that stops most people belongs to a young girl who died at sea.

Her father had promised to bring her home, so he preserved her in a barrel of rum to keep that promise. Self-guided tour maps wait just inside the gates.

Nine historic buildings packed into two waterfront acres

The Beaufort Historic Site sits inside the Historic District and runs on almost two acres, with nine original structures that take you through two centuries of coastal Carolina life.

The Russell House, built in 1732, is the oldest and now holds an art gallery. The Carteret County Courthouse, built in 1796, is the oldest wood-framed courthouse in the state.

Then there’s the Old Jail, built in 1829 with walls 28 inches thick, which comes with its own collection of local ghost stories.

Guided tours run regularly, and self-guided walking tours give you the freedom to move at your own pace.

100 wild Spanish horses roam this barrier island

Shackleford Banks is about nine miles long, completely uninhabited, and 100 wild horses have the run of it.

Genetic testing confirmed they’re descended from Colonial Spanish breeds that arrived in the Americas in the 1500s.

You can reach the island on a short ferry ride from the Beaufort waterfront or from nearby Harkers Island.

Once you’re there, guided walking safaris run about an hour and a half and mix horse viewing with shelling along the beaches. Stay at least 50 feet back from the horses.

Feeding or touching them carries a fine, so keep your distance and let them do what they do.

Rachel Carson did her research right across the creek

From the Beaufort waterfront, you can look directly across Taylor’s Creek and see the Rachel Carson Reserve, a 2,315-acre stretch of state-owned land made up of Carrot Island, Town Marsh, Bird Shoal and Horse Island.

Marine biologist Rachel Carson researched here in the 1940s, and the reserve carries her name.

A local physician, Dr. Luther Fulcher, placed a smaller herd of about 30 feral horses on the reserve around the same time.

More than 200 bird species have been counted here, sitting right in the Atlantic Migratory Flyway. A water taxi, kayak or canoe gets you there in five to 10 minutes from the waterfront.

56 miles of undeveloped barrier islands with no roads at all

Cape Lookout National Seashore covers 56 miles across three barrier islands, stretching from Ocracoke Inlet to Beaufort Inlet. No roads, no stores, no development.

Just beach. The seashore was established in 1966, and it’s since earned certification as an International Dark Sky Park, the first Atlantic coastal site in the National Park Service to get that designation.

You can shell, fish, swim, bird-watch or camp right on the sand in a primitive site. Pack everything in.

There’s nothing to buy once you’re there, and you carry out everything you bring.

The 1859 lighthouse with the diamond pattern you’ll recognize

Cape Lookout Lighthouse stands 163 feet tall and wears a black-and-white diamond pattern that makes it one of the most recognizable structures on the Carolina coast.

It replaced a shorter 1812 lighthouse that stood only 96 feet and couldn’t cut through the offshore fog well enough for passing ships.

The lighthouse itself is closed for climbing right now due to renovations, but the beaches around it and the Keepers’ Quarters Museum are open.

You get there by ferry from Harkers Island or by private boat. The shelling around the lighthouse ranks among the best on the entire East Coast.

Watch a team build a boat in four hours flat

The Wooden Boat Show lands on the first Saturday of May at the North Carolina Maritime Museum on Front Street, and in 2026, it marks its 50th year, making it the longest-running wooden boat show in the Southeast.

It started in 1975 when Charles R. McNeill and Michael Alford decided their shared love of traditional boats was worth celebrating. The show is free.

Dozens of handcrafted wooden boats line the grounds, nautical demonstrations run throughout the day, and the BoatBuilding Challenge gives teams four hours to build a boat from scratch.

Kids get their own area with maritime games, crafts and free sailboat rides.

Paddle Taylor’s Creek and watch for dolphins at the inlet

Taylor’s Creek and the marshes around it run calm and sheltered, which makes them easy going for kayaking and paddleboarding.

Kayak and canoe launches sit right along Front Street, and guided eco-tours leave from the waterfront.

Shackleford Banks and Cape Lookout rank among the best shelling beaches in North Carolina, with conchs, whelks, scotch bonnets, sand dollars and olive shells turning up regularly.

Dolphins work the waters around the reserve and along Beaufort Inlet on a regular basis.

The Gulf Stream passes close to the coast here, pulling in warm, clear water and drawing divers out to shipwrecks sitting offshore.

Visit Beaufort, North Carolina

Downtown Beaufort centers on Front Street along Taylor’s Creek and covers only a few compact blocks, so you can walk to most of it. The North Carolina Maritime Museum at 315 Front Street is free and open to the public.

Ferries to Shackleford Banks, Carrot Island and Cape Lookout leave from the downtown waterfront docks. The Old Burying Ground and the Beaufort Historic Site sit within a few blocks of the water.

Beaufort runs along U.S. Route 70, about 150 miles southeast of Raleigh.

Check the official website for current ferry schedules, museum hours and seasonal tour availability before you head out.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• How a poet’s wife created North Carolina’s influential dairy goat industry
• North Carolina can’t find enough doctors, so a new law just changed the rules
• Grocery help gone: North Carolina tightens food stamp rules for legal non-citizens