Buy Roadtrip USA by Jamie Jensen at Barnes and Noble. The towns of the northern Outer Banks overlap each other and are so of a piece that only a sign tells you you are in Nags Head, six miles south of Kitty Hawk. Nags Head is the most commercialized of the Outer Banks areas, and offers the widest range of visitor facilities.
Accommodations are plentiful, but so are hordes of tourists.
The name Nags Head is derived from the practice of Outer Banks pirates, who tied lanterns around the heads of their horses to simulate boats bobbing at anchor. The lanterns lured passing ships onto shore, where they ran aground on the offshore sandbars. Inc. All Rights Reserved.