Weird Outer Banks and the North Carolina Coast: Blackbeard, Lost Colony, Wild Horses, Shipwrecks, Ghost Lights, Hurricane History, Strange Barrier-Island Adventures

Wild horses galloping beside beach houses. A lighthouse moved nearly half a mile. A vanished colony, a headless pirate, ghost lights, shipwrecks rising from the sand, and a highway that occasionally wakes up in the Atlantic Ocean.Welcome to the Outer Banks, where North Carolina packed several centuries of strange history onto a ribbon of sand and trusted the weather not to rearrange it before lunch.Weird Outer Banks and the North Carolina Coast takes readers on a funny, story-driven journey from Corolla and Kitty Hawk to Hatteras, Ocracoke, Beaufort, Cape Lookout, Wilmington, and Bald Head Island. Along the way, you will discover the legends, mysteries, odd traditions, historic landmarks, wild animals, and coastal mishaps that make this one of America's most unforgettable road-trip regions.Explore the mystery of the Lost Colony, Blackbeard's final battle, the wild Banker horses, the moving Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the abandoned village of Portsmouth, the shipwrecked Carroll A. Deering, Ocracoke's British Cemetery, Topsail Island's secret missile-testing towers, Beaufort's rum-barrel grave, and Wilmington's long career pretending to be somewhere else.This is more than a collection of strange facts. It is a practical and entertaining travel companion filled with ferry advice, lighthouse stops, wildlife safety, road-trip planning, beach-driving tips, storm-season realities, local food traditions, and helpful ways to avoid spending half your vacation reversing direction on Highway 12.Inside, you will also find a north-to-south itinerary, ferry and beach-road guidance, coastal food stories, and a final collection of Outer Banks facts that sound completely fake.Perfect for road-trippers, beach lovers, history fans, lighthouse climbers, pirate enthusiasts, and travelers who believe every vacation improves when wild horses, ghost stories, secret rockets, and hush puppies become involved.