The North Carolina barrier island where land pirates once walked horses along the shore at night

It’s been a beach town since the 1830s

Nags Head sits on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a narrow chain of barrier islands that separates the Atlantic Ocean from Roanoke Sound.

Plantation owners from inland North Carolina started coming here in the 1830s to dodge the summer heat, and the town has pulled in vacationers ever since. According to local legend, land pirates named the place.

They supposedly tied lanterns to horses’ necks and walked the beach at night to lure ships onto the shoals.

Historians doubt the story, but it has stuck for more than 150 years, and the town itself keeps giving people reasons to come back.

Summer cottages shaped the whole coastline

Wealthy families from northeastern North Carolina built the first summer homes along the sound side of Nags Head in the 1830s.

Dr. W.G. Pool of Elizabeth City put up the first oceanfront cottage around 1855, and the shift to the Atlantic side of the island began.

By the early 1900s, a self-taught carpenter named Stephen J. Twine was building what became the signature Nags Head cottage style.

The town didn’t officially incorporate until 1961, but by then it had grown into a full-blown East Coast beach destination, bordered by Kill Devil Hills to the north and Cape Hatteras National Seashore to the south.

Climb the tallest dunes on the Atlantic coast

Jockey’s Ridge State Park holds the tallest active dune system on the Atlantic coast. The dunes rise 80 to 100 feet and spread across 427 acres of open sand.

North Carolina almost lost them in 1973, when bulldozers showed up to flatten the site for development.

Local resident Carolista Baum confronted the operators and launched a fight that led to state park designation in 1975.

Today, Jockey’s Ridge draws more visitors than any other park in the North Carolina state park system, and admission is free year-round except on Christmas Day.

Hang glide, sandboard and fly kites on the dunes

A hang gliding school inside the park runs lessons right on the sand, and the steady ocean winds at the top of the dunes make kite flying easy for all ages.

From October through March, you can get a permit at the park office and try sandboarding down the slopes. Three self-guided trails wind through the dune system, including the 1.5-mile Tracks in the Sand loop.

When you reach the top, the view stretches from the Atlantic to Roanoke Sound, and sunset up there has become a local tradition that fills the ridge every clear evening.

Walk through a thousand-acre maritime forest

Step off the beach road and into Nags Head Woods Preserve, one of the largest remaining maritime forests on the East Coast.

The Nature Conservancy manages more than 1,000 acres here, and the federal government designated the site a National Natural Landmark in 1974.

Towering oaks, hickories and beech trees, some hundreds of years old, grow from sandy ridges that block the ocean wind.

More than 100 bird species and over 50 species of reptiles and amphibians live in the canopy and along the forest floor.

Eight trails lead to ponds and sound views

The preserve has eight self-guided trails, from easy boardwalk loops to longer wooded hikes. Freshwater ponds along several routes hold rare aquatic plants, including the water violet.

The Roanoke Trail ends with a wide view of Roanoke Sound at sunset, and the preserve also has a half-mile ADA-accessible boardwalk that loops through maritime swamp forest.

Everything opens at dawn and closes at dusk, and you won’t pay a cent to get in. Parking fills up between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in summer, so arrive early or late.

A 1939 fishing pier rebuilt with wind and solar power

Jennette’s Pier opened in 1939 as the first ocean fishing pier on the Outer Banks. Decades of storms beat it down, and Hurricane Isabel tore through it in 2003.

The North Carolina Aquarium Society rebuilt the pier as a 1,000-foot concrete structure that reopened in 2011.

Wind turbines and solar panels now help power the facility, and the new design earned LEED Platinum certification.

You can fish from the pier, walk through aquarium exhibits in the pier house, or join marine education programs that run throughout the year.

Weather-beaten cottages that never saw a coat of paint

A row of cedar-shingled cottages lines the oceanfront in a stretch known as the Unpainted Aristocracy. Jonathan Daniels, editor of Raleigh’s News and Observer, gave them the name in the 1920s.

Builders used local juniper, pine and cedar and never painted a single board.

The cottages have wraparound porches, propped-shutter windows and built-in lean-out benches designed to catch the ocean breeze.

The district, officially called the Nags Head Beach Cottage Row Historic District, has sat on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.

A 156-foot lighthouse is still running its original lens

The Bodie Island Lighthouse stands just south of town at the edge of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Built in 1872, it is the third lighthouse to guard this stretch of coast.

The tower rises 156 feet, and 214 iron spiral steps take you to the observation deck. Its original First Order Fresnel lens still works, sending a beam visible 19 miles out to sea.

Climbing runs seasonally from mid-April through mid-October. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and children, available same-day only.

Kayak with dolphins on the calm sound side

Flip to the western side of the island, and you hit Roanoke Sound, where the water goes flat, and the paddling gets easy.

Guided kayak tours take you through salt marsh canals where herons, ospreys and pelicans feed along the edges.

Pontoon boat tours head into the sound to find Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, and parasailing launches from the Nags Head-Manteo causeway lift you high enough to see the dunes and the sound at once.

Jet skiing, sailing and kiteboarding round out the lineup on the sound side.

Eleven miles of beach and a surfer-friendly pier

Nags Head runs 11 miles along the Atlantic, with wide sandy beaches that stretch in both directions. Surfers head to the water near Jennette’s Pier, where friction off the pilings shapes the waves.

Surf fishing is a longtime tradition here, and you need a North Carolina fishing license to cast from the sand. The Outer Banks Fishing Pier sits at the south end of town for another option.

A multi-use path along the beach road gives you a flat route for biking and walking, running parallel to the shore the whole way.

Browse seven galleries in a single block

Gallery Row grew out of a cluster of art studios that took root in the 1970s. Seven galleries and a gift shop sit within a block of each other, with several more nearby.

Many of the original owners lived on-site, building a tight, creative community that shaped the local art scene for decades.

Nags Head now holds the largest collection of art studios and galleries on the Outer Banks, and the work covers everything from local landscapes to abstract pieces by regional artists.

Visit Nags Head on North Carolina’s Outer Banks

You can reach Nags Head by car in about three hours from Raleigh, heading east on US-64. From the north, US-158 brings you across the Outer Banks.

The town sits on Bodie Island between the Atlantic Ocean and Roanoke Sound. Norfolk International Airport in Virginia is the closest major airport, roughly 80 miles north.

Jockey’s Ridge State Park, at 300 West Carolista Drive, opens daily at 8 a.m. with free admission. Jennette’s Pier, at 7223 South Virginia Dare Trail, charges $15 for adult fishing and $2 for sightseeing.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Alaska’s wildest sand dunes sit above the Arctic Circle and hit 100 degrees
• Hawaii’s ‘Biggest Little Town’ inspired Lilo & Stitch and still makes salt the ancient way
• Pennsylvania’s mountain-climbing railroad killed dozens of Irish workers but connected East to West in 1834