Visit The Outer Banks

Roanoke Island & Dare County Mainland — History, Towns, and Things to Do

Across Roanoke Sound from Nags Head, Roanoke Island is home to two towns: Wanchese at its southern tip and Manteo near the center. The island also holds some of North Carolina’s oldest colonial history. At the northern end, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site marks the location of England’s first effort to create a permanent settlement in the New World. The colony vanished sometime between 1587 and 1590, leaving only a carving on a pole as a possible clue. Its disappearance remains a source of fascination for visitors and history enthusiasts.

Visitors can walk across the former settlement grounds and view the waters where the colonists arrived. Nearby, the long-running outdoor drama The Lost Colony offers another account of their experience. Elizabethan Gardens, a 10-acre botanical garden beside Fort Raleigh, contains extensive plantings and a statue honoring Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World.

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Roanoke Island brings together many of the Outer Banks’ signature attractions. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site commemorates the failed effort to establish the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Exhibits in the visitors center and walking trails across the grounds invite visitors to consider what may have happened to the colonists, whose disappearance has remained a mystery since the late 1500s.

A short walk from the original fort site, The Lost Colony presents the story in the longest-running outdoor drama in the nation. The summer production covers the colony, the help its members received from nearby Native Tribes, and the life of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World. Andy Griffith is among the actors who have appeared as Sir Walter Raleigh, along with other performers and characters. Although Raleigh lends his name to our state capitol, he never actually visited.

Next door, Elizabethan Gardens is a 10-acre botanical garden with a statue of Virginia Dare beneath a broad canopy of live oaks. The statue has served as the subject of many photographs, but the gardens offer more than that single landmark. Visitors can look across the Roanoke and Croatan Sounds, walk through the orderly plantings of the traditional English garden, and search among thousands of flowers for a favorite bloom.

Manteo is the larger of Roanoke Island’s two communities; Wanchese is the other and is known as a fishing village. In Manteo, Roanoke Island Festival Park functions as both a history center and a gathering place for festivals held throughout the year. Costumed interpreters demonstrate how the original colonists lived.

The Elizabeth II, a full-scale reproduction of the ships that carried the lost colonists from England to these waters, floats in the town marina at Shallowbag Bay. Visitors can cross the bridge to board the vessel and explore its upper and lower decks with a costumed interpreter. Along the way, they can learn about shipboard routines and the hardships encountered by sailors and landlubbers traveling to the New World.

Close to the island’s center stands The Mothervine, the oldest cultivated grapevine in the U.S. The gnarled muscadine vine has grown here since around 1584, though records from that period are imprecise and the date could be off by a couple of years. It grows in front of a home, with numerous trellises supporting its massive trunk and an expanse of vines and foliage covering what appears to be a quarter-acre.

The Mothervine’s grapes are not used to make wine. Instead, they become alcohol-free juice packed in antioxidants. A taste offers a connection to the earliest roots of the nation.

Nearby, Island Farm preserves a group of historic buildings once associated with the prominent and prolific Etheridge family. In 1757, the family received a tenant’s lease covering a large portion of Roanoke Island, and by 1783 they had become the landowners. The farmhouse and many outbuildings were constructed around 1850 and were used by the Etheridge family and the enslaved people who worked the farm and fields. Today, curators and interpreters in period costume present that history.

Demonstrations include blacksmithing, livestock feeding, and wool spinning. The historic buildings are another highlight, particularly the property’s most distinctive feature: a windmill. More precisely, it is a post windmill. It was one of two on Roanoke Island in the mid-1800s, though post windmills were common across the Outer Banks for decades. Without streams suitable for powering a water-driven grist mill, Bankers used the plentiful wind to operate their mills. Island Farm also keeps a pair of Banker Ponies, wild horses descended from shipwrecked Spanish Mustangs that have inhabited the Outer Banks’ dunes and scrub forests for hundreds of years.

The Etheridge name appears again at the North Carolina Aquarium at Roanoke Island. Outside the building, a gravesite and memorial honor Richard Etheridge, a Black descendant of the family and one of the most heroic figures in the U.S. Lifesaving Service, which later became the Coast Guard.

Inside, the aquarium traces the story of the surrounding waters. At the North Carolina Aquarium Roanoke Island, the main attraction is the 285,000-gallon Graveyard of the Atlantic tank. A replica shipwreck rests inside, resembling the wrecks found offshore along this coast, where more than a hundred ships have sunk. Sharks, eel, and dozens of other fish occupy the tank.

Interactive touch tanks accompany exhibits about sea turtles and coastal ecology. The aquarium’s route follows water from inland areas toward the ocean, with separate environments represented by tanks containing otters, alligators, seahorses, sharks, and other animals.

The Roanoke Island Maritime Museum continues the maritime story with boats designed locally for the sounds and ocean surrounding Roanoke Island and the Outer Banks. At the end of a short pier, the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse reproduces the style of the lights that guided commercial fishermen through the island’s shallow, frequently shoal-filled waters.

Island Farm is also nearby, operating as a living-history museum dedicated to life among Roanoke Islanders and Outer Bankers in the mid-1800s. Original and restored buildings, along with costumed historians and subject matter experts, bring the setting and its stories to life.

Hiking, Biking, & More

Roanoke Island can be explored on foot or by bicycle. A mixed-use path follows the highway and is shaded for much of its route, a welcome feature for summer riders. After touring Manteo’s commercial and residential streets, cyclists can head north toward the Aquarium, Island Farm, the Fort Raleigh-Elizabethan Gardens area, and the views near the base of the Washington Baum Bridge. Some portions through town use streets rather than dedicated paths. Visitors can bring their own bicycles or use an Outer Banks rental shop to arrange wheels for a day, a week, or another length of stay.

For a slower-paced outing, boats depart for sunset cruises, dolphin tours, and sightseeing trips across the Sound and into the Atlantic. Several operators leave from Manteo harbor, including Captain Johnny’s Outer Banks Dolphin Tours, the Downeast Rover, a beautiful 55’ topsail schooner, Sail Outer Banks, Outer Banks Adventures, and others. At the southern end of Roanoke Island, Paradise Dolphin Cruises operates from Wanchese and focuses on finding these mammals in the wild. The Outer Banks proper also offers numerous sunset, dolphin, and pleasure cruises.

Hunting

Hunting is permitted on Roanoke Island on private property when the property owner grants permission, as well as within the 1,847-acre Roanoke Island Marshes Game Land south of Highway 64. Available game includes white-tailed deer, black bear, turkey, feral pigs, small game, and waterfowl. Hunters need a North Carolina hunting license and the appropriate tags or stamps for deer, hogs, or waterfowl.

The Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge supports a broad selection of hunting opportunities. Species include waterfowl, quail, mourning dove, woodcock, rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, opossum, and white-tailed deer. Most of the Refuge’s 154,000 acres are available for hunting, with signs and maps identifying areas where hunting is allowed or prohibited. A valid North Carolina hunting license and a permit from the Refuge are required. The permit and the Refuge’s hunting regulations are available online.

Guides and outfitters organize hunts for waterfowl, deer, and other game. Dare to Hyde Outdoor Adventure serves Dare County and neighboring Hyde County. Eastern OBX Guide Service, Parkers Waterfowl Guide Service, Duck Hunter OBX, and Outer Banks Waterfowl Guide Service are among the local providers available to hunters.

Sound Accesses

Roanoke Island

Mainland Dare County

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