Looney Dunes

Travel guide · North Carolina

Outer Banks

The Outer Banks is a chain of narrow barrier islands roughly 110 miles long off the North Carolina coast, separated from the mainland by a series of sounds. It has wild Spanish Mustangs, one of the few remaining herds on the East Coast, roaming the 4WD beach north of Corolla — descendants of horses that survived 16th-century shipwrecks. It has Kill Devil Hills, where Orville Wright flew the first powered airplane on December 17, 1903. It has Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the tallest brick lighthouse in the US. And it has Nags Head, which has been a beach vacation destination since the 1830s and still has cottages from the 1930s and 40s that cost less per night than a hotel in Raleigh.