There are two major components to this post. The first is free advertising for places I visited. The second is lessons learned from the planning and execution of our first major trip.
PLACES
National Parks Service Installations
1. Cape Hatteras National Seashore - http://www.nps.gov/caha/index.htm - 1401 National Park Drive, Avon, NC 27915. Cape Hatteras is the better-known of North Carolina's two national seashores. This is because it is fairly easily accessible, has lovely beaches, and has the nation's tallest lighthouse. Because it is accessible by road, it's a good starter point or entry point to the National Park system, especially if you like lighthouses or you just like beaches. There is camping, but it's summer-season only, so wasn't an option for us and we weren't quite ready in any case.
2. Cape Lookout National Seashore - http://www.nps.gov/calo/index.htm - 131 Charles Street, Harkers Island, NC 28531. Cape Lookout is a hidden gem of North Carolina. Hatteras is better known, which means Lookout is less well-funded as an installation, but also much less crowded. It is harder to reach, but there are a number of sites that are only accessible by boat that make it worth the visit, like the lighthouse itself, the wild horse herd, the cabins, and the old town of Portsmouth. A family could stop for a morning, a whole day, several days, or a week, and not truly run out of stuff to do here.
3. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site - http://www.nps.gov/fora/index.htm - 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954. The site is fairly small, easily walked even for children. The visitor's center has a handful of interesting displays, most notably their rebuilt Tudor room. During the summer, the local historical society performs a play down by the shore nightly. This is a site that a family can do in a couple of hours, or can stay longer, by preference.
4. Wright Brothers National Memorial - http://www.nps.gov/wrbr/index.htm - 1000 North Croatan Highway, Kill Devil Hills, NC 27948. A fine art-deco visitor's center that hasn't changed much in thirty years, a large 1930s memorial atop the launch hill, and the reconstructed Wright facilities are the main attractions here. You could spend an hour or two, or a full day, here, so if you're looking for a quick stop, this is a good one.
National Wildlife Refuges
1. Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge - http://www.fws.gov/refuge/alligator_river/ - 100 Conservation Way, Manteo, NC 27954. Alligator River NWR straddles the road on the way from Manteo to Cape Lookout, and, I am told, has bears. I refuse to believe this without seeing proof, same as I refuse to believe that there are bison at Yellowstone or bears at Yosemite. They either don't exist, or they're laughing at me. I am willing to believe either.
2. Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge - http://www.fws.gov/refuge/pea_island/ - 15440 NC-12, Rodanthe, NC 27968. Pea Island fills in the interstitials between Kitty Hawk and Cape Hatteras. It's literally a can't-miss on the way to Cape Hatteras, since you drive right through the middle of it. It's also difficult for me to tell you what the scenery looks like, since NC-12 is a sunken road right through the middle of it. I understand the birding is excellent, but I'm equally willing to believe the birds built berms blocking my view.
National Forests
1. Croatan National Forest - http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/nfsnc/null/recarea/?recid=48466&actid=63 - 141 East Fisher Avenue, New Bern, NC 28560. Croatan fills most of the public land on the peninsula leading to Cape Lookout. We didn't spend much time exploring it, but passed through. It has several campsites, though I can't vouch for the facilities as that wasn't our destination.
Attractions
1. Elizabethan Gardens, Manteo, North Carolina - http://elizabethangardens.org/ - 1411 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954. The Elizabethan Gardens are colocated with Fort Raleigh, so walking from one to the other is possible, though not recommended with small children or bad legs. The gardens themselves are well-provided with benches, and with admission at less than $10 a head for adults with no other discounts, it's worth the visit just to take a very pleasant walk.
Restaurants
1. Awful Arthur's Oyster Bar, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina - http://www.awfularthursobx.com/ - 2106 North Virginia Dare Highway, Kill Devil Hills, NC 27948. Good seafood, but a bit pricey. Both of the times we've visited, waitstaff have been very helpful, even recommending against an order rather than covering up when something wasn't as fresh as they'd like. Family-friendly despite "bar" in name. Recommend the crab and butter for its absolute simplicity. It's crab meat... and butter. That's it.
2. Froggy Dog, Avon, North Carolina - http://www.froggydog.com/ - 40050 NC-12, Avon, NC 27953. I honestly do not remember what we ordered, what with it being two years ago. I think it was breakfast foods, but service was pretty good and they held on to one of our park passport books when it got lost, so they get points for that.
3. No Name Pizza and Subs, Beaufort, North Carolina - http://www.nonamepizzaandsubs.com/ - 408 Live Oak Street, Beaufort, NC 28516. I recall ordering their Greek burger, which was very good, and we all had a Greek salad. However, reconstructing it is difficult at two years' remove and with at least one menu revamp on their part in the middle. It was exactly what we needed at the time, and left us all feeling satisfied in a way that only the right food at the right time can. I would happily go back again.
4. Virginia Diner, Wakefield, Virginia - http://www.vadiner.com/ - 408 County Drive North, Wakefield, VA 23888. This place is an institution; it's been there since before the Depression, and it serves reliably good Southern cuisine with reliably good service. Mrs. Traveling Matt prefers the fried chicken, I prefer the country-style ham, as I feel no one in my experience does ham better than Virginia. Breakfast, dinner, and dessert are all reliably good, and I feel the buffet, while good enough and certainly shovel-ready, is the weakest point of the experience. For quality, I'd order off the menu; for quantity, the buffet's hard to beat if you're there when it's going. In any case, in more than a year of regular visits, we never had a bad meal there.
Lodging
1. Cape Hatteras KOA, Rodanthe, North Carolina - http://koa.com/campgrounds/cape-hatteras/ - 25099 Highway 12, Rodanthe, NC 27959. When we came through, Cape Hatteras KOA was still recovering from Irene. It was the first KOA we stayed at, and it pretty much set the pattern. The facilities were all in good shape, the staff were friendly, and it was noticeably different from a chain hotel. These were all good points in my eyes. I understand they have finished their post-Irene renovations. Unfortunately, the Airstreams appear to have been phased out in favor of more classical beachfront cabins. This is a loss, as the Airstream wasn't much different from a furnished cabin, price-wise was probably the same, and there's a certain panache lost with them.
2. Cape Lookout Cabins, Great Island, Cape Lookout NS - http://www.nps.gov/calo/planyourvisit/lodging.htm - Location Varies, Cape Lookout National Seashore, NC. The cabins at Cape Lookout are a good introduction to slightly rougher camping if your family is used to hotels. There's no guarantee of electricity unless you bring your own generator, and air conditioning may not be there, but with a stiff sea breeze, you may not need it. They're rustic without being run-down, and the inclusion of cooking surfaces, running water, and a full bathroom makes life much easier than straight "roughing it." The only drawback is that they are only accessible by a separate paid ferry, so the up-front reservation costs are higher than just reserving a cabin. Otherwise, they're a great way to get away from the real world for a few days.
LESSONS LEARNED
The largest lesson of this trip was that we could do this kind of thing. We were never going to be under tighter financial, time, or health restrictions than this first trip, because we were unlikely to take another grand road trip with twins expected in the near future, my job is such that I am unlikely to take a pay cut, between professional registration and the way government employment works, and we were unlikely to face a tighter timeline than "one week, maximum." This wasn't quite the worst-case scenario, but in worst-case scenarios, frankly, people shouldn't go on vacation.
The second lesson was the value of planning. Each night, even if we had to stretch to get there, we knew exactly where we were sleeping. In two cases, we knew exactly where we were eating. We had a pretty good idea what we wanted to do between eating and sleeping, with the exception of one sick kid. That allowed us to budget for fuel, for food, for recreation, all up-front, both in terms of money and time. This particular trip was probably one of our cheapest; because I like to get souvenirs, they've gotten a lot more expensive since, but this one was pretty stripped-down because we hadn't really hit our stride quite yet.
This first trip also had one significant difference from all subsequent, and a few previous, road trips: the legs were short and manageable. Subsequently, we've tended to put a whole lot more in our days, with the result that sometimes we reach where we're staying at three in the morning, after significant cuts. This one wasn't over-ambitious, and when we decided to cut a leg out, we had a fallback plan all ready to roll.
If this trip had a weak point, it was that we didn't really have a plan for the distant end, and we failed to take into account a couple of potential stops on the way, either because of lack of interest, or because we were low on energy. Looking at our Wilmington plan, it, unlike the travel days, was wildly over-ambitious. It would have taken two or three days of real time to accomplish, as opposed to one day of planning time. This would be a regular feature of future trips, and the one area that always needs improvement. We routinely under-estimate how much time it would take, for instance, to visit a given museum, even a small one - Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historic Site took two and a half to three hours to visit, when I had budgeted an hour and a half. A more realistic appraisal of what we could and could not do in a given timeframe is an ongoing issue.
There are more comments I could make, but they belong in a more substantive setting, where I can discuss lodging choices, feeding choices, and must-have equipment for any road trip.
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