Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

1500 Fort Raleigh Road (off U.S. Highway 64), Manteo

(252) 473-2111

This national historic site commemorates and preserves the first English attempts at colonization in the New World (1585 to 1587) and helps visitors gain a better understanding of other Roanoke Island histories including the Carolina Algonquian, the Civil War Battle of Roanoke Island, the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island and Reginald Fessenden's Roanoke Island experiments with wireless voice radio.

Pay a visit to the visitor center and bookstore where exhibits, a short film and park staff will help you understand the history of this area. During the summer months, park staff offers a regular schedule of ranger programs. Outdoor paths through the historic grounds provide visitors a view of the restored earthworks, originally built during 1585. The Thomas Hariot Trail winds through the wooded area between Roanoke Sound and the earthworks, making about a quarter-mile loop. Hariot’s discoveries of the New World are noted on signs along the trail. Nearby this site was the location of the Freedmen’s Colony of Roanoke Island, where escaped slaves found refuge during and after the Civil War. On the park grounds, you will find wayside exhibits that discuss the Freedmen’s Colony and a marker that designates the park as part of the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a nationwide program of sites that addresses the Underground Railroad story. There's also a longer hiking trail, the Freedom Trail, that leads out through the forest and out to the Roanoke Sound where there is another Freedmen's Colony marker; look for the trailhead in The Elizabethan Gardens' parking lot.

A visit to Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is free. In summer the visitor center is daily. Check the website for offseason days and hours. Adjacent to the parking lot, a picnic site is available with tables under shady trees and a spacious lawn for kids who love to run and enjoy the great outdoors. Both The Lost Colony’s Waterside Theatre and The Elizabethan Gardens are on the grounds of this national park unit.

Featured for Your Visit

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge

Milltail Road, off U.S. Highway 64, Manteo

(252) 473-1131

Website

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge is a more than 164,000-acre refuge on the mainland portion of Dare and Hyde counties. It was established in 1984 to preserve and protect a unique wetland habitat type, the pocosin, and its associated wildlife species. Pocosin is a Native American word meaning ‘swamp-on-a-hill’ and is characterized by poorly drained soils high in organic material. The refuge's diversity of habitat types includes high and low pocosin, bogs, fresh and brackish water marshes, hardwood swamps and Atlantic white cedar swamps. Plant species include pitcher plants and sundews, low bush cranberries, bays, Atlantic white cedar, pond pine, gums, red maple and a wide variety of herbaceous and shrub species common to the East Coast.

The refuge has a large population of black bears and is one of the few locations where red wolves exist in the wild. It is a favorite of migratory ducks, geese and swans, and its wildlife diversity also includes wading birds, shorebirds, American woodcock, raptors, American alligators, white-tailed deer, raccoons, rabbits, quail, river otters and neotropical migrant songbirds. This wild Outer Banks attraction will put you in touch with parts of nature that city-bound people don't often have a chance to experience.

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge has great Outer Banks things to do – paddling trails, a wildlife drive and two wildlife trails for you to explore. Hunting and fishing opportunities also exist on the refuge. In non-COVID times the staff offers a variety of interpretive programs at different times of the year, including tram and van tours, canoe tours, red wolf howlings and a program about black bears. Open-air tram tours are offered weekly June through August (a fee and reservations are required). Canoe tours are offered three days a week June through August (fee and reservations required). Red wolf howlings are offered weekly June through August and monthly October, November, December and April and May (a fee is required). Call (252) 216-9464 to see if programs are being held and to find out details and make reservations, or go to the website.

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge is a more than 164,000-acre refuge on the mainland portion...read more