At the rough midpoint of Hatteras Island, the vacation town of Avon stretches for a couple of miles along Hwy-12 before the road hits the Canadian Hole windsurfing area, two miles south of town. After another few miles of natural dunes, the road bends sharply to the west; continuing south here brings you to the main Cape Hatteras visitors center (daily in summer only; 252/995-4474), and the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. At 208 feet, the black-and-white-striped lighthouse is the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States, visible from as far as 25 miles. However, because the ocean here has been slowly eroding away the beach (when the lighthouse was built in 1870, it was a quarter mile from the waves; by 1995 the coast was a mere 120 feet away from its base), in 1999 the National Park Service succeeded in lifting the 3,000-ton lighthouse onto rails and shifting it a quarter mile inland. If you feel fit, climb ($6) the stairs (12 stories’ worth, each way) to the top of the lighthouse for a grand view—one that gives the clearest sense of just how narrow and transitive the Outer Banks really are.
Farther along, at the end of this road, there’s a summer-only, first-come, first-served campground.
From the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Hwy-12 bends west and south through Buxton and Frisco, where you will find a gauntlet of motels, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants at the commercial center of Cape Hatteras. The very popular Fish House (252/995-5151) is on the main highway next to Cape Hatteras High School. Buxton’s motels, like the Lighthouse View (252/995-5680 or 800/225-7651) or the Falcon (252/995-5968 or 800/635-6911), are reasonably priced (under $100 in summer) and clean. Ocean beaches here at the very tip of the cape are among the most spectacular anywhere; south-facing, they tend to pick up some of the most extreme surf—especially when hurricanes hit—which is why Buxton and Frisco are the local surfing capitals.
More restaurants and motels (including a Holiday Inn Express) await you in Hatteras, at the southern end of the island. From here, state-run ferries (5 am–midnight; free) shuttle every half hour across to Ocracoke Island, another mostly unspoiled barrier island where you’ll find great beaches and the pretty village of Ocracoke, at the island’s southern tip.
The Outer Banks
