The North Carolina coast is dotted with towns and cities, resorts and beach houses, where families return for annual getaways. These places are backdrops for memories, sometimes forged over generations. Yet vacationing — especially at the beach — is about more than just where you go.
For one special week every summer, relatives from across the state and around the country make their way to Topsail Island for food, fun, and a family reunion of epic proportions.
No rush: The clocks on the walls of Oak Island Restaurant are just for decoration. All you really need to know is whether it’s Chicken & Dumplings Thursday or Fried Fish Friday.
In a town known for its seafood, a family ice cream business serves up nostalgic standards and creative concoctions that change with the seasons.
More than 45 years ago, a fishing family started a seafood market to sell their catch. The market expanded into a mainstay restaurant in Salter Path whose varied menu includes a seasonal special that celebrates coastal resilience.
On the way to work or headed home from the beach, post up in a booth at the Old Bridge Diner for breakfast and lunch classics — pancakes to patty melts to popcorn shrimp — all day long.
For more than 60 years, vacationers have been bringing their pampered pets to Atlantis Lodge in Pine Knoll Shores for beach getaways worthy of man’s best friend.
A couple turned their passion for agriculture and love of North Carolina into Mike's Farm, a holiday destination for families across the state.
For years, Robert Humber II lived virtually alone on his own private island off the North Carolina coast. He thought he had everything he needed. Then, he got a knock on the door.
