These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: Outer Banks, NC

Hey all,

The month of May was kind of crazy for the Franeks, as we spent a majority of our free time traveling. We recently took our first trip to the Outer Banks here in North Carolina and we LOVED it! If you are looking for a relaxing place to go that also has fun things to do and explore, this is a great place to do those things! We totally could have spent a whole week there, but a long weekend was a good amount of time too. There are not a ton of places to stay, but we did an Air BnB studio apartment in Kitty Hawk (central OBX) that allowed dogs which was perfect for us. Here are some of our favorite things that we did and places we liked to eat from our trip!

1) Barefoot Bernies
This is a pretty typical beachy restaurant, except to me the food was GREAT! For once I didn't order a burger or grilled cheese (my go-to's at these types of restaurants) but instead ordered their grilled chicken with mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes. YUM! Madi got ahi tuna and loved that too. It was good service, not a long wait, and great food. Can't ask for much more than that!

2) Bodie Island Lighthouse
A friend at work told me about this lighthouse because I was worried about leaving Nike alone at the Air BnB for a long time to drive down to Cape Hatteras. This lighthouse was beautiful! It was $10 to climb to the top (a little pricey for us) but it had a spectacular view of the Outer Banks and you got to learn about the history of the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper. If you know me well, you know that I love lighthouses. This one was no exception. But bring your bug spray because the fly bites are awful!

3) Stack 'Em High

This breakfast restaurant was super low key. You actually go up and order cafeteria style for things like fruit, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, drinks, and then things like pancakes or omelettes are made and brought to your table. It was cheap, fast, clean, and delicious. You can't ask for much more than that! We wanted to go back Monday morning but didn't want to leave Nikes again, but we will definitely go back on our next trip!

4) Corolla and the Wild Horses
So I guess we got pretty lucky with our trip because we saw quite a few wild horses and a lot of people I have talked to went out looking and saw none. We did the Back Country Safari Tours and really liked it! We learned a lot about the horses, how many there really are on the cape (about eighty six documented) and the different rules and regulations of the horses.

5) Wright Brothers National Park
My mom's boyfriend told us about this as he is a pilot and they visited on their trip to the Outer Banks. It is a nice little outdoor museum ($7/person to enter and you can bring dogs! Score!) and has the site from where the first plane took off. They also have an indoor museum but that was being renovated currently. Places that allow dogs and encourage learning are a win-win in our book!

We always think it's funny that most people go on vacation to relax or would go to OBX to hit the beach the whole time, but most of our time was spent learning things about the area. That is pretty much how most of our vacations are. We really are just giant nerds. Another thing we loved about the OBX is that the beaches are SUPER private and chill. We had to go early or late because dogs could only go before 8am and after 5pm but both times we went there was no one with in a football field's distance from us. Super nice! The flies were definitely out there too though, so bring some chairs and spray! Our next adventure won't be until our big two week summer trip in July. For now we are just catching back up and getting ready for Sondra to move in! Less than two weeks y'all! :D

Thanks for keeping up with us,
- Olivia :)