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We've compiled the best of the best in The North Carolina Coast - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
This small but beautiful oceanfront aquarium features a 235,000-gallon saltwater tank that's home to sharks, stingrays, and a Goliath grouper and green moray eel. There's a touch tank with rays, a room of glowing jellyfish, an albino alligator, and turtle ponds. Kids love the life-size replica of a megalodon shark and enjoy the daily feeding times and animal encounters.
A 306,000-gallon habitat for sharks, fish, and a sea turtle—built around a replica of a German submarine (sunk nearby in 1942)—is the largest aquarium tank in the state. There's also a tank with a replica debris field of Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, and a river otter exhibit. But the biggest standout of this location among the three major North Carolina aquariums is a 0.6-mile nature trail that winds through a wooded peninsula until its terminus on Bogue Sound, with nearly 360-degree views of the marsh and water.
Occupying 68,000 square feet of space overlooking Croatan Sound, this modern aquarium includes exhibits on sea turtles, shipwreck marine life, and wild wetlands. The Graveyard of the Atlantic—a 285,000-gallon ocean tank containing sharks and the re-created remains of the USS Monitor, which sunk off Hatteras Island in 1862—remains the centerpiece exhibit. The aquarium hosts a slew of activities and field trips, from feeding fish to learning about medicinal aquatic plants and participating in a workshop on injured sea turtles. It also manages the 1,000-foot-long Jennette's Pier in Nags Head.
