A trip to Roanoke Island is an essential part of any Outer Banks vacation. This small island is home to several of the Outer Banks’ most popular attractions and activities as well as the Town of Manteo, with its picture-perfect waterfront setting full of shops, restaurants and things to do.
Whether you’re looking for a full day’s worth of activities for a family or a leisurely afternoon of touring for just the two of you, Roanoke Island is the perfect daytrip destination.
Access to Roanoke Island is via the short length of a causeway and bridge from Nags Head, but once you find yourself there, you could very well imagine it located much farther away. With its lush landscape and slower pace, Roanoke Island feels a world apart from the beach, but really it’s only a five minutes’ drive from Nags Head.
This island is rich in history, and it’s important to understand that history before you can understand Roanoke Island. The first attempts at English settlements in the New World took place on Roanoke Island between 1585 and 1587. That’s 20 years before the Jamestown settlement of 1607. Though the Roanoke Island colonies didn’t prove successful as far as longevity, they were the foundations of English-speaking life in America and provided much-needed information about the New World that helped the later colonies succeed. You can learn more about the early Roanoke Island colonies at these attractions: Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, The Lost Colony and Roanoke Island Festival Park.
Roanoke Island Festival Park, just across the water from Downtown Manteo, is a tribute to the first English colonies established here. The centerpiece of the park is the 69-foot Elizabeth II, a representation of a 16th-century sailing ship, which you can climb aboard to explore and meet costumed interpreters. The Settlement Site features demonstrations and activities of everyday colonial life. New to the park is the American Indian Town and Cultural Center, an interactive center that teaches about the culture, heritage and traditions of the American Indians in the region. It also includes a wide variety of true-to-scale structures, role-play environments and places to explore and play. The Roanoke Adventure Museum features hands-on exhibits on 400 years of Outer Banks history. The park also features a fossil search, an art gallery, a film called The Legend of Two Path, a theatre and outdoor pavilion where many special events are held throughout the year.
On the north end of Roanoke Island, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site includes three attractions. The Fort Raleigh Visitor Center lets you learn more about the early colonists. You’ll see actual excavated artifacts from the colonies, a reconstructed fort and learn about the Elizabethan era. There’s also a nature trail through woods that look much like the Roanoke Island that the colonists explored. Next door, in the summer months, you can see The Lost Colony, America’s number one outdoor drama, and ponder the fate of the 1587 colony that mysteriously disappeared from its Roanoke Island base. Also on the historic site grounds is The Elizabethan Gardens, designed by two of America’s foremost landscape architects to pay tribute to America’s first English colonists. Explore a peaceful wonderland of beautiful plants, landscaping and statuary, and ask about the many special events they offer in the summer months.
The North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island is also on the north end of island. One of three state-operated aquariums on the North Carolina coast, the aquarium features numerous tanks of fish, including the 285,000-gallon, shark-filled “Graveyard of the Atlantic” saltwater tank. You’ll also find otters, alligators, snakes, frogs and turtles, interactive exhibits, two touch tanks, a theater and a new exhibit, “Oceans Revealed: Power of the Planet,” an interactive way of viewing Earth and its oceans.
Historic Downtown Manteo is an attraction in itself. On the waterfront and entirely walkable, the Downtown area includes a fabulous boardwalk, a marina, restaurants, shops, a great bookstore, art galleries, a waterfront playground, the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse and the Roanoke Island Maritime Museum. On the waterfront, several tour boats are ready and waiting to take you sailing, parasailing, kayaking or dolphin-watching.
On the other side of the island, Wanchese is a working community of commercial fishermen and boat builders. This is much more than a vacation spot, it’s the year-round home of many people. If you’re curious, drive down to Wanchese and see the way the islanders live, work and play. You’ll find a working waterfront, a couple of restaurants and shops, and some seafood markets offering the freshest seafood around.
Roanoke Island may afford some the opportunity to relax away from the beach scene, but for those willing, there are adventures around every turn. Whether on foot, bike, boat or kayak, opportunities to explore the natural beauty of the island abound. Get a bird’s-eye view of the island in an airplane or swinging from under the parachute of a parasail. Take a sailing tour or kayak through the marshes and get a glimpse of the glistening Roanoke Sound or Shallowbag Bay. Create a tour group of your own – rent a couple of bikes at the waterfront and explore the seven miles of bike paths.
Exploring an island is hungry work. Luckily, there is a taste of everything on Roanoke Island. From a ‘50s-style diner to seafood restaurants to outdoor cafes to fine dining, there’s an opportunity to indulge taste. Stop at a fresh produce stand and bring home some sun-ripened fruits and vegetables. Keep cool on the waterfront boardwalk with a sweetly dripping ice cream cone. Read the morning paper with a cappuccino and some buttered scones on a coffee house couch as comfortable as your own living room’s.
Roanoke Island is the vacation from your vacation – a complex, but uncomplicated piece of paradise that is as close as the rest of the Outer Banks, but feels so much farther away. Come explore everything this island has to offer, although you may need more than one trip to accomplish it all. That’s OK, because once you’ve had a nibble, you’ll be back for the whole meal. |
