10 Best Sights in The North Carolina Coast, North Carolina

Across the Cape Fear River from downtown, take a self-guided tour of a ship that participated in every major naval offensive in the Pacific during World War II. Exploring the floating city, with living quarters, a post office, chapel, laundry, and even an ice cream shop, takes about two hours. A climb down into the ship's interior is not for the claustrophobic. A ½-mile timber walkway lets visitors tour the ship's exterior with no cost of admission. The ship, which is open for tours every day of the year, can be reached by car or via river taxi from the downtown waterfront.

This garden's 67 lush acres feature azaleas, magnolias, and camellias that flourish near two freshwater lakes that attract waterfowl. This is not an ornate flower garden—it's more of a naturally beautiful place to take a stroll beside the river, enjoying native plants in bloom, trailside sculptures, and abundant birdlife. Take note of the greatest specimen in the gardens: a gargantuan five-century-old oak.

May through October you can flutter among 300 to 400 butterflies in the huge butterfly house.

The last tickets of the day are sold a half hour before closing. No pets (except service animals) are permitted.

The colonial Georgian-style house General Cornwallis used as his headquarters in 1781 was built in 1771 on the foundations of a jail. After a fine, furnished restoration, this colonial gentleman's town house, framed by two stately magnolias, is now a museum that includes seven period gardens, including an orchard, a rose garden, and a kitchen garden, along with an 18th-century debtors prison.

An ambitious exhibition schedule of historical and contemporary significance, plus a plethora of public educational programs and a clay studio, keep this museum on the cusp of capacity and engagement. The museum's permanent collection, contained in a sleek 40,000-square-foot facility, includes originals by Mary Cassatt and a collection of Seagrove pottery. On the 10-acre grounds are restored Confederate defense mounds built during a battle in the waning days of the Civil War.

Try to visit during a Live@CAM performance, a series of concerts on Thursday evening and Saturday morning.

Trace the natural, cultural, and social history of the lower Cape Fear region from its beginnings in this, the oldest continuously operating museum in North Carolina (founded 1898). The interactive Cape Fear Stories exhibit provides a chronological history of the region from early Native Americans to the 20th century. Other exhibits explore the more than 400 film projects shot in the Cape Fear area in the past 30 years and the back stories of local heroes like basketball star Michael Jordan. Kids can get in touch with the area's environment by feeding Venus flytraps, and the fossilized skeleton of a 1.5-million-year-old giant sloth (20 feet long, 6,000 pounds) makes a great photo backdrop. New Hanover County Cape Fear Museum Park, with a neat children's playground, is adjacent to the museum.

Built in 1852 in the Italianate Revival style, this home museum, with 600 Victorian items in its collection and elaborate ironwork framing the grounds, is a reminder of both the opulence of antebellum living and its tortuous underbelly. Guided tours of the home and the quarters that housed 11 enslaved people are available. Tours begin on the hour from 10 am to 2 pm. The Lower Cape Fear Historical Society is also based here.

Lose yourself along magnolia-lined natural trails that wind through rose beds and dozens of varieties of shade-loving camellias on this 7-acre site, just across the water from Airlie Gardens. Relax in the Japanese teahouse, spend a moment of reflection by the water garden, or admire the native carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap.

Take a tour of what was once a major peanut and sweet potato farm in North Carolina, with an 1850 Greek revival manor house and its outbuildings. Watch a blacksmith at work, admire the farm animals, see weaving and basket-making demonstrations, and learn about the difficult lives of the people who were enslaved here. On Wednesday from 8 to 1, mid-April through late September, local farmers, growers, and artisans sell their produce, plants, and crafts. The site adjoins the hiking trails of the 67-acre Abbey Nature Preserve.

Clean, wide beaches here provide the setting for all sorts of water sports. Surfers dominate the sunrise waves at Crystal Pier. Kayakers, parasailers, paddleboarders, bodyboarders, and windsurfers all share the waters here while shoreline runners and walkers hit the sand, which is also perfect for sandcastle building and people-watching. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards (Memorial Day to Labor Day); parking (fee); toilets. Best for: surfing; swimming.