Customer Reviews

Explorer's Guide North Carolina's Outer Banks & Crystal Coast: A Great Destination (Explorer's Great Destinations)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I travel, I love having breakfast at some local place that serves locally inspired food while I browse a good guidebook to the area. Renee Wright's guide to North Carolina's Outer Banks was just what I wanted, too.

It will help you find that special breakfast spot and just about anything else that you're looking for in Nag's Head, Kitty Hawk, Manteo, the Emerald Isle or the rest of the Outer Banks.

All of the Countryman Press Great Destinations books are solid guides to where to stay, what to see, and how to get there with contact information and maps. But they also have a personal touch I like.

Wright's, particularly in the introductions to each section and the sidebars ("The North Beaches, Where the Road Ends," "The Charles Kuralt Trail," "Hatteras Island, One Road On, One Road Off," offer a fun mix of the area's rich history, local lore, and primary attractions. It builds your anticipation before you set off to see the light houses, wild ponies, and windswept dunes.

I also like finding stuff like the out of the way restaurant where the boiled crab cakes make the drive worthwhile, and this book is full of that sort of inside info.

The writing is crisp and entertaining and the photographs, also by Wright, are well done and the captions always tell you something interesting (For example: "The remains of a mini-golf course peek through the sands of the largest dune on the Outer Banks").

The only bad part about this book is that you'll want to stay longer than a short vacation may allow. But heck, you can always come back.

Very practical introduction to the area for new visitors. The web resources were excellent and up to date. The book contained expectations for getting around and accommodations - things like linens at rental properties, taking unpleasant surprises out of my vacation planning. I used it to plan a week for family with adult, teen and pre-teen interests. Deeper than "where to go and what to see", it includes local lore, history and ecology. My book is highlighted and dog-eared for what to do next time!

The book covers the area we will be vacationing in with helpful information. At times I wished a little more detail was provided.

I returned this guidebook after I determined that I could get more information from my AAA guidebook- which was free. I'm sure there are more informative ones to be had. The area in which we had interest had only 4 pages....hardly worth keeping a book for that!