2025 Activities Guide

Atlantic Dance has been teaching kids dance on the Outer Banks since 1995. Atlantic Dance offers classes in tap, jazz, hip hop and lyrical with a primary concentration in classical ballet. At Atlantic Dance, little girls learn grace and achieve development through music and dance. Ballet introduces girls to poise and self confidence and encourages creativity and discipline.

Avalon Fishing Pier offers everything you need for a long, enjoyable day (or night!) of fishing. First built in 1958, Avalon Fishing Pier is about 700 feet long, stretching out to the Atlantic Ocean over 12 to 15 feet of water.  Located at milepost 6 on the beach road, there is a parking lot for pier customers. After paying a modest fee, you’ll receive a stamp good for an entire day of fishing. Three-day and week-long passes as well as season passes also are available. Bring up to three rods per person and take advantage of convenient cleaning sinks.The pier features a snack bar and tackle shop with bait and rentals. Bait sold at the pier shop includes bloodworms, squid, mullet, shrimp and artificial lures. You’ll be able to enjoy a reasonably priced beer at the snack shop.When the fish are biting, you can catch everything from blues, croakers, flounder, trout, mullet, pompano and spanish to spot and stripers -- even bigger fish such as cobia and kings! The fish are known to bite on their own schedule, but often the best action comes early morning and late afternoon, about an hour before sunset.A webcam displays up-to-the-minute conditions at the pier on Avalon Pier’s website as well as other websites. The pier also is a common stop for surfers and bodyboarders who are looking for waves to surf in Kill Devil Hills.

Aviation Park in Kill Devil Hills offers a fun, active retreat from the beach for everyone in the family. The town park offers a playground, ball field, frog pond, fitness trail, roller hockey rink and the very popular Aviation Skatepark.

Enjoy a cold drink and an easy-going atmosphere on the edge of the water at this destination that has been a favorite local hangout for more than 30 years. Situated along Colington Road in a mainly residential corner of the central Outer Banks, Blue Crab Tavern is where waterfront views and good times meet, and is a great spot to unwind, relax, and simply enjoy the good life by the saltwater.

Dare County Family Recreation Park, or Rec Park, serves as the county’s focal point for youth and adult activities. The park features tennis courts, baseball and soccer fields and a playground. Swings, slides, a climbing wall and a covered picnic pavilion are available at the playground and nearby are a tennis practice wall and two batting cages. Also at the site are temperature-controlled press boxes, a concession stand and restrooms.Dare County Youth Center, located at Rec Park, serves the community as a safe after-school destination for middle and high-school students and offers many organized programs for youth and adults as well. In addition to soccer and baseball, other sports programs it hosts are gymnastics, football, ultimate frisbee, lacrosse, softball, fishing, surfing and volleyball. The Northern Beach division of the Youth Center also co-sponors a number of teaching camps and activities in archery, etiquette, golf, music and the arts - along with sailing and other water sports - to name only a few.Family Recreation Park is located behind Outer Banks Brewing Station and is within walking distance of the Kill Devil Hills Library and Post Office, the Baum Center and Kill Devil Hills Cooperative Gallery, which also offers arts and craft classes for kids. It’s also near both First Flight Middle and First Fligh High School.

The most unique souvenir you could bring home from the Outer Banks is one you make yourself. At the Garden of Beadin’ in Kill Devil Hills, you can make your own jewelry and learn about beading. 

Glazin’ Go-Nuts Paint Your Own Pottery offers a creative and fun activity for the whole family. There’s no better souvenir than your own, uniquely painted pottery that will remind you of this unforgettable fun, crafting experience as well as your vacation in the Outer Banks. 

Hayman Park is a charming, circular neighborhood park located at the north end of Kill Devil Hills and on the sound side of Highway 158 (the Bypass).The park has a large open area often used for adult soccer practice and children’s soccer games, by golfers practicing chip shots and owners exercising pets. It’s also great for Frisbee throwing, kite flying and other activities or just lying on a blanket in the sun. In the shaded area are benches, along with picnic tables and a grill for cookouts, and nearby are swings sturdy enough for all ages and a jungle gym and slides for the kids. There are also plenty of live oak trees to climb or relax beneath with a good book.The park is surrounded by a wooden fence with several openings and plenty of room for parking on the grass area between the fence and the street, where traffic is required to move at a slow pace. The pavement encircling the park is also a great place to bike on windy days - never too long in a head wind - and to keep track of distance when running or biking - five times around the park is one mile. Hayman Park is maintained by the Town of Kill Devil Hills and is open to the public, with a portable toilet available during the season.

You might not know that the Outer Banks has a robust arts community. KDH Cooperative is an artist-operated gallery featuring works of local artists across the Outer Banks. Membership of KDH Cooperative includes artists of diverse backgrounds. Art work represented by KDH Cooperative includes oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastels, photography, ceramics, jewelry, fibers, collage, wood, pottery, glass, mosaic and metal.  

Kirsten Lewis Photography offers destination wedding and portrait photography for visitors in the Outer Banks. Kirsten Lewis is an award-winning photographer who has placed among the top 20 photographers in the world by Fearless Photographers. 

Meekins Athletic Field and Playground, also known as Kill Devil Hills Field, is located between the Dare (Shopping) Center and Kill Devil Hills Fire Department. It’s one of the first recreation parks built in the county and has a playground with swings and slides, two tennis courts and a softball field. Restrooms are also provided at the park.Both the tennis courts and the softball field have lights, and the field fence is at 280 feet. The soccer field is 210 X 140 feet.If you’re yearning for a night of old fashioned fun and entertainment, you can either join one of Dare County’s adult teams or come every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights (with rain days on Friday) to watch softball teams compete. Adult men’s teams (ages 18 and up) play Mondays and Wednesdays, and Coed Adults (ages 16 up) play Thursdays, both in Kill Devil Hills Field and in Wanchese.The field, along with the other facilities, is also open other times to the public for group, family or individual picnics or unorganized games or practice. During the fall the soccer field hosts competitions between youth soccer teams.Conveniently located next to the Dare Center, which hosts several eateries, Meekin’s Field is a great place to come for an afternoon  or evening of play and exercise, and afterward cool off with a cold drink, pizza, sub or other meals offered at the Center.

Keep your vacation stress free!  Pack your casual beach clothes & essentials, and let Ocean Atlantic Rentals deliver the rest! CURBSIDE PICKUP/CONTACTLESS DELIVERY: 1-800-635-9559 JUST RENT IT! Since 1979, OAR has been serving families with quality gear for their beach vacation fun, their baby needs, or the even the beach cottage, all at reasonable daily & weekly rental rates.  Reservations before your arrival are strongly encouraged, and can be made at www.OceanAtlanticRentals.com or toll-free at (800)-635-9559 every day of the week! Everything can be delivered to your door; from bikes to surf boards, kayaks and paddleboards, OAR stocks the fun stuff to enjoy in the water, or on land.  Back at your beach home, OAR has you covered with gas grill rentals, rollaway beds, beach towels, and even dog crates!  Bike rentals for the entire family are just a call away at Ocean Atlantic Rentals, or get around town on a Golf Cart LSV.  These street legal golf carts are a great way to explore the villages, or get your family and gear to the beach everyday if your vacation home is some distance from the Atlantic ocean.

Open since 2002, the Outer Banks Arboretum and Teaching Garden was created to provide the community with horticultural education, to help with property enhancement and also as a memorial acknowledgement. The Garden is located next to the Baum Center in Kill Devil Hills - also near the Kill Devil Hills Library and behind the KDH Post Office. It’s a small, quiet and secluded area with a brick pathway that winds through the aquatic, dune and butterfly sections that make up the garden. Besides providing locals and visitors a place of relaxation and visual beauty, the goal of the garden is to test and display labeled plantings and to investigate and showcase planting practices that are most suitable for the Outer Banks’ coastal climate. Featured at the garden are a number of salt- and pest-resistant native plants that are able to thrive in this area despite its often challenging, coastal microclimates of beach dunes, wetlands and maritime forests.The Arboretum and Teaching Garden was founded through collaborative efforts of Dare County’s NC Cooperative Extension Service, Extension Master Gardeners and the Dare Master Gardener Volunteer Association (MGVA). Among the project's partners are Outer Banks Community Foundation, the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau and the Town of Kill Devil Hills. The Dunes of Dare Garden Club maintains the Butterfly Garden. Dare MGVA, along with private contributions and memorials and community grants, fund the Garden.

Electric bicycles are an exciting way to enjoy the Outer Banks. Electric bikes allow you choose how hard you want to pedal, if at all! E-bikes are powered by a battery and electric motor that propels the rider at speeds up to 20 mph. Relax, enjoy the ride, and explore more of the Outer Banks with an E-bike! E-bikes are also great equalizers between riders.

There’s no better way to beat the heat than to enjoy a day or evening at the movies, and R/C Theaters Movies 10 Kill Devil Hills is just the place to escape. This is the theater in the Outer Banks where you can view all of the latest movies when they first hit screens. The movie theater features stadium seating with high-back rocking chairs with huge wall-to-wall curved screens. The theater is updated with the latest in digital technology, including digital projection, DOLBY digital sound and 3D digital projection for 3D feature films.

Sail the Outer Banks (formerly Outer Banks Sailing Academy) offers professional sailing instruction operating under the standards of the American Sailing Association. They offer lessons in Kill Devil Hills. The Academy presents an array of classes including a youth sailing program, a teen program utilizing the Olympic Class 420s, and adult programs for sailors of all levels. The courses are designed to lend confidence, are unrushed and carefully spread over three or four days.

Sal's Pizza sells New York style pizza by the slice, whole pizza pies, hot Italian subs and hearty pasta dishes.