Fact: You can find an alcoholic beverage at pretty much any restaurant or bar on the beach, but what if you aren’t in the mood for alcohol? Maybe you simply want to enjoy time out at your favorite bars and restaurants with friends without the risk of drunken regrets or tomorrow’s fuzzy head. Perhaps you’re refraining for health reasons or because you’re the designated driver, pregnant, part of the “sober curious” movement or just aren’t into drinking. This beverage-happy beach town has plenty of

We all have certain essentials we need at the beach. But it comes with an inevitable debate: what sunscreen to buy? What should we put on skin after a sunburn (oops)? Where to even find products? Since I know we all love supporting local makers, I’ve come up with a list for you, so that you can create your very own all-natural beach care kit — made up solely of products by Outer Banks small businesses that use only local, organic ingredients in their lotions and potions. Preesh Product Co. is

Well folks, 2020 was an eventful year. Between a global pandemic, social unrest, isolation, financial woes, and contentious presidential election, we really couldn’t catch a break. We asked locals to describe their year in one word: agony, exhausting, dumpster fire, fail, awful, cray, nightmare, tumultuous, polarizing, awful. One person just wrote a bunch of symbols: #@*%/&!. Others wrote words like revealing, growth, eye-opening, enlightening, introspective, retrospective, game-changer...

For years, people on the Outer Banks have asked why we don’t have a co-op. In October last year, a group of women got together and asked why not? Shree Fulcher, owner of Ascension, a crystal shop, apothecary and energy healing center, has teamed up with three other healers and makers, Emily Howell, of Howell’s Herbal Apothecary, Schuylar Henderson of Henderson Handwoven, maker of beautiful macrame, and Kristin Hamm, of North12Naturals, an organic beauty and body care business to create Hi Vibe

Peace Garden Project, a nonprofit based in Manteo, is on a mission to create a healthy community here on the Outer Banks. Organization founder Michelle Lewis believes that the key to a healthy community is accessibility. She wants to bring education and resources to help people better understand their neighbors, build bridges and strengthen their sense of social justice. But in order to get there, she believes we also need to take care of ourselves physically.

Amy Landes has always paid attention to the things she’s naturally drawn to, letting her curiosity lead the way. That’s how she found her purpose in life, she says: helping people heal their bodies with healthy, vibrant, living foods. “I have always been curious about what gives a person good health, what makes a person healthy, because there’s got to be something to it,” she says. When curiosity met inspiration, she started Shine On Juicery, offering cold-pressed juice and plant-based food to

Restaurants have been on the front line for more than a year. Employers and staff have dealt with adhering to COVID-19 restrictions, increased responsibilities and precautions that magnified employees’ to-do lists during already-busy shifts. Many adapted by inventing new— oftentimes less efficient—ways of doing things. With restrictions lifting and widespread availability of vaccines, you’d hope that restaurant workers could finally take a breath, catch a break and see a little light at the end of the tunnel. But as the nationwide housing crisis implodes on the Outer Banks, this hope is little more than wishful thinking.

Kurt Korte, our favorite local surfcaster — or shall we call him our favorite OLYMPIAN surfcaster — just got back from Tokyo, where he was surfcasting for the first ever Olympic surf competition. In fact, the New York Times calls him “Olympic surfing’s wave whisperer.” But we were curious — what’s a normal day in the life like for Surfline’s director of Atlantic forecasting here on the Outer Banks? According to their website, every day, hundreds of thousands of people around the world depend on

Every morning Jeff Rasmussen wakes up, looks himself in the mirror and says the same thing: "How am I still here?" "It's insane. I literally shouldn't be here," he says. In November 2012, Rasmussen collapsed in his living room in Palm Desert, California. His girlfriend and her two children happened to be in the room with him and called 911. His son, Chris, 24 at the time, ran every light on the way to Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage and beat the ambulance there. The doctor arrived