Outer Banks Scenic Byway

This “life-saving station,” with its decorative board-and-batten walls and elaborately styled eaves, clearly indicates European medieval inspirations for its designer, the architect Frances W. Chandler. It is the only one to survive unchanged of the first 23 built along the Atlantic coast in 1874. The boxy brown-shingled building to the left is an 1892 cookhouse.

The enormous second-story railed belvedere atop the shingled hip roof of the first story of this odd-looking building along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway was the observation tower and deck for the U.S. Weather Service in 1902. Now the Hatteras Welcome Center, it has been restored to its original appearance with bright yellow clapboards on the first floor and red painted shingles visible between the dark-green shutters of the second story’s many windows.

The striking black-and-white Bodie (pronounced Body) Island Lighthouse stands at the north end of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Snow Geese love to winter on the Outer Banks at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Learn about lifesaving on the Outer Banks at Chicamacomico.

With a marsh extending nearly as far as the eye can see, the sky becomes an enormous canvas for the many moods of the weather. This photo, with its rolling blue, gray and white clouds and dead-level gold and green, captures the sense of big sky and vast lands experienced by visitors as they traverse the great marsh of Cedar Island.

Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge has miles of deserted white sand beaches.

A silhouetted osprey descends to a post at sunset on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

North Carolina’s Outer Banks are a prominent barrier-island landform on the United States’ east coast. A vast green watershed, varied blues of the rivers, sounds and ocean and the white strip of sand edging the islands are the natural world that shapes the unique culture celebrated along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway.

An aerial view reveals the the Outer Banks Scenic Byway’s Bodie Island Light Station from the east. The lighthouse stands stoic with its horizontal black-and-white striped “daymark,” with the white Keepers Quarters and Oil House barely visible to the left. The Atlantic Ocean’s waves create a horizontal fringe of froth in the distance.

Waterfowl impoundments, constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, dominate this view of the Outer Banks Scenic Byway’s Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. East of this narrow strip of watery land are dunes and a froth of restless white Atlantic waves.

Small green numbered markers unobtrusively placed every mile on Bodie, Hatteras, and Ocracoke Islands help keep travelers oriented and aware of distances along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway.

In Atlantic, a bicyclist pedals past a standard white-on-brown NPS directional sign which gives distances to three locations in the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

This sign signals traveler’s arrival at Cedar Island along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway. A North Carolina scenic byway marker is on its left post and a green numbered marker for NC’s bicycling system is on its right post. In the photo, a stylish ground-level sign bids visitors to “The Crystal Coast” to “enjoy your visit.”

Along Outer Banks Scenic Byway, NC’s small green, blue, and white scenic byway marker is appended to the left post of a familiar brown National Park Service sign directing travelers to toll ferry locations. It is joined by the NC bicycle map marker on the right post and a separate, standard black-and-white U.S. route marker for US 70. All provide arrows guiding travelers at this key corner with its revitalized country store.

At a key turn, a thicket of wayfinding signs greets the eastbound traveler. A freestanding NC scenic byway sign, a NPS sign directing travelers to toll ferry concession locations, a separate, standard U.S. route marker for US 70 and NC’s picturesque ferry system logo direct travelers. The ferry sign provides both a toll-free number and a website address. Travelers seeking state routes “off the beaten path” in NC learn to spot the tiny four-digit numbers seen on the post below the US 70 sign.

A blue sky with fluffy white clouds is pierced by the weathervane-topped, green-and-white shingle-and-clapboard steeple of Portsmouth’s 1914 Methodist Church.

A friendly front porch with a bench and rockers welcomes customers to the Burrus Red & White, which was established in 1866. A hefty row of three ice chests speaks of hot thirsty days.

Heading homeward to Hatteras, this bright-red deep sea fishing vessel carries a friendly passenger waving to a passing ferry on the Outer Banks Scenic Byway.

A large ferry crossing Hatteras Inlet carries a full summer load of travelers along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway. On the bow and upper deck, passengers enjoy the sunshine and the cooling breezes of Pamlico Sound.

Young fishermen tie up in Harkers Island’s harbor along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway to deliver a load of fish to a waiting buyer. In the background the dark waters of the harbor reflect a line of white-painted small wooden skiffs.

The Outer Banks Scenic Byway’s Herbert C. Bonner Bridge emphasizes the horizon as it rises gracefully above Oregon Inlet in this portrait in silver, gray, white, and sandy gold. Waves mark the turbulence as the tidal outflow from the sound joins the Atlantic Ocean.

Renowned decoy carver Roy Willis demonstrates his skill for elementary school students visiting the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway.

This aerial view of the Sandy Bay Soundside access and walkway gilded by morning light shows how narrow this point of Hatteras Island is.

This bright white and sea green model of the Hatteras deep-sea charter fishing vessel Albatross I, by Jimmy Amspacher, shows Harkers Island heritage with a rounded stern designed to keep nets from snagging.

The sun sets in a splendid display of golden light and dark cloud seen to the west across the vast Pamlico Sound, one of the many visual pleasures of the Outer Banks Scenic Byway.

Picket fence-lined Ocracoke’s Howard Street , just off the Outer Banks Scenic Byway, is a deeply shaded narrow lane paved only with crushed oyster shells.

A summer visitor to the Outer Banks Scenic Byway engages in a favorite pastime on the ferry leaving Ocracoke’s Silver Lake, photographing the harbor and the enormous former U.S. Coast Guard Station, built in 1935.

A summer crowd fills the deep front porch of the David Williams House to hear Earl O’Neal and his cousins, all three older residents of Ocracoke, tell stories of their lives on the island.

Wooden vessels in a harbor in Davis, painted in traditional white and rigged as trawlers, include the two large Harkers Island boats at right. Their low, flared hulls, designed to carve shallow waters, stand out against the straight hulls of the two larger boats at left.

Cedar Island’s exhibit at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center includes three colorful modern versions of a long-standing Down East quilting tradition as backdrops, with one, top left, using a nautical compass as its theme.

On Harkers Island along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway, hand-painted signs attract the visitor’s eye to Captain Blaine's Gift and Seafood Shop, offering fresh local seafood along with gifts, decorative buoys and driftwood.

Fishing trawlers in Cedar Island’s harbor along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway include the Miss Vonnie with her rounded stern, indicating an early 20th-century style of wooden boat built along Core Sound and on Harkers Island.

A row of directional signs greets the traveler just outside the village of Sea Level along the Outer Banks Scenic Byway. Signs on the photo include NC’s standard green directional sign, which signals the major turn just ahead, with Sea Level (the name is misspelled here as Sealevel) and Atlantic to the east, and a shortcut to Cedar Island to the left (north). The NC ferry system’s blue-and-white sign announces 12 more miles to the Cedar Island ferry. An attached handmade sign stating “restaurant,” is a hitch-hiker, designed to resemble NC’s local-level directional signs. The National Park Service’s standard sign points the way to a toll ferry ride to Portsmouth Island. NC’s green numbered marker for its bicycling system is attached.