As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are trying to venture out more and explore our home state of North Carolina.
A Surprise Escape
The perks of living in our state is that we have beaches and mountains, often making great day trips (depending where you live) or easy getaways.
Last weekend we took a day trip to Wrightsville Beach – a couple of hours drive from our home.
Tristan had asked to go to the beach all summer so we decided to surprise him with a beach day!
We told him we were taking him to preschool but going the long way to get there. He had no idea it was a Saturday by the way. We left home at 4:30am and he eventually went back to sleep on the way to Wrightsville.
When he woke up, he said we weren’t near preschool, we were at the beach. The funny thing is, he said this as we drove past a marina. We told him “no we’re not at the beach, we took a wrong turn.” Well you can’t fool this kid apparently, because he was not buying it! Surprise over!
Parking
After driving around for a bit, we found a really great parking lot for Beach Access #36 near Oceanic Restaurant. The lot was across the street from the beach access. It has changing rooms and bathrooms which is a wonderful thing to have available if you’re not staying at a hotel and only there for a day trip.
Tip: Parking is free before 9am and after 7pm.
It’s $2.50/hourly between the hours 9am – 7pm. Since we got there early, we not only had 2 free hours of parking, but also had the beach mostly to ourselves!
Meshach and Tristan played in the sand and water for hours.
But eventually we got hungry, so we packed up and walked to Oceanic Restaurant for a very early lunch. It was really nice dining on the pier with the ocean breeze and views. Ahhh paradise!
We still had a couple of hours left on the parking meter so we went back to the beach which turned out to have a lot more people than earlier.
While the boys played in the water, I escaped the hot sun and sat under the pier. Apparently many other people had that same idea.
I guess their beach umbrella broke like ours did? Haha!
Five more minutes turned into 10, then 15, then 20 until we had to pack up with minutes to spare before we’d have to pay another $2.50 for an extra hour!
Favorite Beach
Wrightsville Beach has always been my favorite out of the North Carolina beaches I’ve visited. I feel like it’s less crowded and just a peaceful setting (when it’s not the last days of summer!)
We bought some beach chairs and a new umbrella this past week so now we have another excuse to make frequent beach trips!
Meshach wants to try Surf City next time. We went there when I was on maternity leave and I didn’t like it that much, but parking is free!
Is there a local beach. mountain, lake, river, etc. that you like to visit where you are? Comment below and share this post! Until next time, happy travels!
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I’m glad I stumbled upon this blog. I am lover of travelling as well, and my name happens to be Meika too. Planning a day trip with my little one this weekend and so this read will help tremendously. I always forget about Wrightsville Beach as a destination spot, opposed to Myrtle Beach.
Hi Meika! Thank you so much for reading our post and we’re glad you enjoyed it! Another great beach you could visit one day is Surf City on Topsail Island if you haven’t been there yet. I don’t know what it is about that particular beach but whenever we arrive for the sunrise, the ocean looks like glimmering sapphire blue and I love the cotton candy color sky there in the early mornings. I’ve never seen anything like it at the other NC beaches we’ve been to. Here is the link to our Surf City blog post if you’d like to take a look: https://www.ramnathsaway.com/surf-city-north-carolina/ Have fun on your day trip this weekend 🙂