Weather permitting, visitors can climb the steps of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse on their own, and rangers conduct guided tours of the Bodie Island Lighthouse. Ticket purchases do not transfer from one lighthouse to the other. Admission to each lighthouse is $8 for adults and $4 for children under 12. If you go: There is no admission to enter Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and there are visitor centers on Cape Hatteras and on Bodie and Ocracoke islands.Ĭape Hatteras and Bodie Island lighthouses are open from the third Friday in April through Columbus Day. The south entrance, state Highway 12 north of Ocracoke, is accessible only by ferry. The north entrance is in Nags Head at the junction of U.S. The location: Cape Hatteras National Seashore lies on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, about a four-hour drive from Raleigh and 2½ hours from Norfolk, Virginia. It is the fourth-most visited national seashore, according to the National Park Service. Park stats: More than 2.3 million people visited Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 2012, and it has averaged more than 2 million guests per year since 2008. The Ocracoke, Hatteras and Bodie Island lighthouses were built and rebuilt throughout the 19th century to help ships avoid the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” and the Wright Brothers made history’s first recorded flight in Kill Devil Hills at the beginning of the 20th century.Ĭape Hatteras National Seashore is history, a vacation destination, a home to endangered wildlife and a geological wonder combined into one national park site on North Carolina’s coast. A little more than a century later, the pirate Blackbeard unscrupulously assaulted Ocracoke Inlet, marauding and terrorizing merchants. The Outer Banks were home to Native Americans long before 1584 when Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to make Roanoke Island the first permanent European settlement in the new world. Meanwhile, dolphins play in the waters close to shore as brown pelicans hover in competition to snack on schools of fish. It slowly washes away tiny tracks left by newly hatched sea turtles that wobble into the surf under the cover of darkness. The morning tide keeps time on the barrier islands of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
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