Anonymous wrote:This all sounds pretty miserable. Are the beaches really worth it?

No. There are tons of closer beaches, all up and down the east coast. Frankly, anywhere else. OBX beaches are okay, but you can get a lot better, much closer. The hype is getting found out, slowly - usually after people sit in their cars and see what it is like once they get there. Since you asked. It has never taken us less than seven hours, this is us leaving at dawn. No thank you. Not to mention, the kids are bored out of their minds at OBX.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We leave Fri night after kids are asleep. We move them to car while asleep. We arrive about 1 in the morning and check into cheap motel with pool. We sack out. Kids wake up and go to pool. Midday we leave to get keys etc from real estate

Groan! This is supposed to vacation.

+1

Exactly. What a nightmare. Totally not worth it.

This all sounds pretty miserable. Are the beaches really worth it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leave at 4 a.m., stop for breakfast and then lunch & beach when you arrive. I always do this and never have any traffic.

This s what we do and we are in Corolla in under 5 hours. We pack the car the night before and bring breakfast with us.

This sure is lot of work just to vacation at the outerbank. Especially in Corolla which only has one way, way way up the peninsula. During emergencies, hurricane, it becomes like a roach motel... only one way out.

Anonymous wrote:We leave Fri night after kids are asleep. We move them to car while asleep. We arrive about 1 in the morning and check into cheap motel with pool. We sack out. Kids wake up and go to pool. Midday we leave to get keys etc from real estate

Groan! This is supposed to vacation.

Anonymous wrote:Leave at 4 a.m., stop for breakfast and then lunch & beach when you arrive. I always do this and never have any traffic.

This s what we do and we are in Corolla in under 5 hours. We pack the car the night before and bring breakfast with us.

You're renting a house for at least a week. Just don't get to island the in same 6-7 hour window as everyone else.

Anonymous wrote:Leave at 4 a.m., stop for breakfast and then lunch & beach when you arrive. I always do this and never have any traffic.

This is always our strategy, will be again this year with a Saturday check-in. The way I look at it, either you deal with the inconvenience of packing night before and early bedtimes for the kids, groggy start to the trip, or sit in mind-numbing traffic for hours on end.

We leave around 4am, usually have no issues getting to Duck/Corolla (our usual spots) in 5+ hours. Stop for breakfast, have lunch at Awful Arthur's, go to a public beach early afternoon until check-in time. This strategy also gives you another "beach day" rather than first day of vacation spent all about the travel.

I also second earlier advice, get to OBX by 10am to miss the bulk of bridge traffic. It's well with the couple hours of sleep you might miss by getting on the road early!

Where are you staying?

Last year, we rented a house starting on a Sunday and the drive was so much easier. This year, the rental week of the house we're staying starts on a Friday which I'm not crazy about because it involves an extra day off work but I expect the drive will be amazing once we get through Virginia. We do plan to leave past the bulk of rush hour on Friday to avoid the DC/VA madness.

Suck it up and just do it! Leave at or b4 6am. You'll hit traffic at the bridge to Duck (if you're going to the north beaches) I can't speak for southern Nags Head area. It will easily be 2 hours from that point.

Coming home leave at night, after 9pm. It sucks but totally doable with 2 drivers. You're not missing anything by sleeping in the house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - sounds like it's going to be ugly - unfort we can't leave the night before because we have people flying into BWI fairly late that are joining us. Guess we will leave bright and early, though!

Can the folks flying into BWI fly into somewhere else and meet you in OBX? Like fly into Richmond (half the bad traffic is just getting past Fredericksburg on I95) or Raleigh?

Raleigh is MUCH farther from the OBX than Norfolk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - sounds like it's going to be ugly - unfort we can't leave the night before because we have people flying into BWI fairly late that are joining us. Guess we will leave bright and early, though!

Can the folks flying into BWI fly into somewhere else and meet you in OBX? Like fly into Richmond (half the bad traffic is just getting past Fredericksburg on I95) or Raleigh?

If flying into BWI odds are they are fly SW.

SW I has a few daily flight to Norfolk (ORF) which is the closest commercial airport to OBX. I have done the flight before gate to gate in 25 minutes. From gate at BWI to house in Kitty Hawk in 2 hrs.

Leave at 4 a.m., stop for breakfast and then lunch & beach when you arrive. I always do this and never have any traffic.

Best option is to get a Sunday check-in, but then the traffic back can be horrendous

Leave EARLY (5:00am). Pay for early check-in (1:00pm instead of 4:00pm). Plan to get as close to Corrolla as possible as early as possible, then go somewhere for lunch while you wait for your house to be ready.