Hello! I’ve been so excited to share this trip with you! My husband, Todd and I went camping over our anniversary a few weekends ago at Cape Lookout, North Carolina. If you’re like me, then you’re probably thinking, where the heck is Cape Lookout? I had never heard of it before, until my friend suggested that we travel here for a fun, but cheap vacation. Cape Lookout is a small island off the coast of North Carolina. It is part of the Outer Banks and the only way to get to it is by ferry.
Well we listened to her advice, and decided to go because neither of us had truly ever been camping! If you are looking to camp at the beach this is the place for you to go! It is super private (you pretty much have the whole beach to yourselves…and this was in June!) Also, there is a beautiful lighthouse on the island that you can climb, and a museum about the history of it. Also, there are rides around the island that will take you to the best shelling places.
We set off on our journey bright and early Thursday morning! (Just watch the decline in how exhausted we look later in the the pictures, lol)
Before the trip I had looked up places to eat within the area (before we took the ferry to the island). We decided on Clawson’s. We enjoyed our food (below) and the atmosphere, however, I will say we were underwhelmed by the amount of food for the price (Todd got two pieces of shrimp, when that was one of the main parts of his meal…and we are near the beach…give him more shrimp!), however it was tasty! I would have loved to explore this area more because it had lots of cute shops and live music!
This is where things get funny, where we say to you, DON’T DO THIS! lol…so we did all our research before we went on this trip, and we reserved a ferry ride over to the island. The place where we ate lunch was about thirty minutes from where we were supposed to take the ferry, Todd noticed that they were advertising ferry rides where we were and thought it was odd that we were going to drive thirty minutes away to get on the same small island. He wanted to just take a ferry from where we were, but I said that we should stick with the plans.
Well as soon as we arrived at the ferry service I had a bad feeling about it because I noticed I was the only female, and all the people on the ferry with there large RV’s, beers, and fish poles, wasn’t really what I had expected. (Let me point out that this would make an excellent “bro trip” but not what I was thinking).
Well we rode it anyway thinking it was taking us to the same island, and it did…but on the opposite end! When we pulled up and saw no lighthouse (the main thing we were supposed to be seeing), we knew for sure that we had made a mistake. This ferry took you to the South End of the island where people stayed in RV’s or cabins and mainly went fishing. It was packed over there and we would have been camping in the middle of everyone, which was not what we wanted!
So we asked the men driving the ferry (they were so sweet!) and told us that we could just ride back and take a different ferry to the correct end of the island, however it was too late in the day so we couldn’t take a ferry until the next day.
For anyone wondering, here is the CORRECT ferry service, just in case you plan to take a camping trip like us! 🙂
We ended up finding a local hotel that we got majorly discounted because we were arriving so late. (We stayed here). It ended up being a blessing and we really enjoyed our time exploring Atlantic Beach.
We decided we needed some ice cream to take away the stress of the afternoon, so we found Pop-elato’s.
Their gelato was so good! I would definitely recommend it if you are in the area!
Pop-elato’s happened to be close enough to the beach for us to walk down their and eat our ice cream. You can see in the picture below how exhausted we look, lol!
We got a good night sleep and then headed out bright and early for the correct ferry over to Cape Lookout. Todd was a trooper carrying so much luggage!
This ferry was way more what I was expecting, it was full of families and couples out for a ride to the beach. Along the journey they show you Shackleford Island, where there are wild horses. They actually stop at this island too and you can camp there as well!
Yay for being on the right ferry!
Once we arrived, all the people on the Ferry usually end up going to the lighthouse or to find shells, not many people stay near the dock, so if you want privacy, go there!
We found an area to camp in the trees that way we would have shade and could hammock! We got our camp site all set up and then went to explore!
We explored the island a bit, as well as the lighthouse and the museum. We decided not to climb the lighthouse because you have to pay, but I’m sure the view from the top is beautiful!
We got our annual “Follow Me” picture. (we do this every anniversary trip, starting with our honeymoon)
Then we found something dead on the beach… (watch the video to see what it was)
For lunch we set up a campfire and had hot dogs and corn on the cob!
After lunch the sleepiness hit us and we decided to hammock for a bit, not going to lie, this was probably our favorite part of the whole trip! Hammocking is so relaxing and both of us took a good nap!
This is probably the most random camping tip, but take Sunny D frozen in a cooler for your trip. It is seriously the most refreshing drink to have while camping!
Once we were up from our good naps, we ended up walking to the other side of the island (it is not long at all!) What’s really awesome about the island is that you get the best of both worlds: on the inland side, the water is super chill and you can see through it, but then on the other side you get big waves (we saw some people bringing surf boards).
We swam some, and then once sunset began we decided to make dinner. I will share our camping meal plan later this week, but we also made blueberry cobbler over the fire which was absolutely delicious!
After sunset we hit the hay…well first we were awaken by some critter outside our tent.
Note to self: always check that all trash is put away, even a small piece of aluminum foil.
Todd ended up scarring the intruder away. Then we slept until about 4:30 when it started pounding rain.
Our tent was waterproof, but at the same time, with a hard rain, it started to leak through some of the seams. So we went back to sleep after we packed up almost everything inside the tent, until we could catch a ferry.
We awoke and packed as fast as we could and dried the inside of our tent with the towels we brought, this was probably the worst part of the trip because we got disgustingly dirty and I got around 30-40 mosquito bites.
We were so happy when we finally got on the ferry because it had been a stressful morning, however it was super funny because as we pulled away the rain stopped and the sun came out!
On the way home we decided to stop in Raleigh for lunch. We found this cute place called Poole’s. The served brunch, and honestly it was just what we needed! I got the hotcake dish and Todd got the grits dish. We would recommend both! It was great to have one sweet and one savory because we then could trade off!
After that we headed the rest of the way home!
A few tips for those of you who may be planning a camping trip to Cape Lookout:
– There are bathrooms. They say they close at a certain hour, but they didn’t ever close!
-There are no trashcans however there are recycling bins for water bottles. Water bottles made up most of our trash, so this was nice to separate out, otherwise, bring trash bags!
-To build a fire you can use wood from the island, however I would also suggest a fire starter to help you out.
– Bring a few extra dollars to tip the ferry driver
-If you are camping, you really can camp anywhere except within a certain distance of a building, so find a private spot, there are plenty!
While we did have a few stressful or crazy moments on this trip, we really enjoyed our time together. Honestly, all these crazy things that happened now just make great stories for us to tell! So I wouldn’t change one thing about our trip!
Todd and I also decided to make a video of our trip so we could remember it (and we were dying to try out his go-pro). While we are no expert bloggers, you do get to see what the dead thing we found was and you can watch how Todd gets in a hammock (it’s hilarious)
Thanks for stopping by!
Let me know in the comments below if you have ever been beach camping!
-Kasey