Outer Banks

Two hundred miles of barrier islands and spits off North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, separating Currituck, Albemarle and Pamlico sounds from the Atlantic. The open beachfront and Cape Hatteras National Seashore are what draw people; the beach grasses and shrubland behind them hold the land in shape and make the place an important biodiversity zone. Hundreds of shipwrecks have earned these waters the name Graveyard of the Atlantic. The Wright brothers made the first controlled powered flight here at Kill Devil Hills on 17 December 1903.