Corolla was a village long before it was a vacation address, and it never threw its history away. It put it on signs. The Corolla Wild Goose Chase is a self-guided walking tour of Historic Corolla played as a game on your phone: one flat 1.5-mile loop, twenty-four challenges, and a village that has been leaving its stories out on public ground for anyone who slows down enough to read them.
- WhereHistoric Corolla Park, 1100 Club Road
- On footA flat 1.5-mile loop
- TimeAbout 2 hours
- BestDaylight, any day
$29 a team, not per person. Up to six players, on one phone or each on their own, any day within 90 days.
Get the team pass · $29Your team link arrives by email right after checkout. Renting a 4x4 from Beach4x4? Every rental includes a free hunt pass.
You walk it at your own pace. The game checks you in by GPS at each stop, sets photo challenges, and asks questions you can only answer from what is in front of you — a date on a marker, a detail on a building, a line on a sign. Nobody leads it, and nobody outside your group is along.
Where the walk goes
Every stop is outdoors on public ground, so nothing needs to be open and nothing needs a ticket. Park once; everything after that is on foot.
Historic Corolla Park
The hunt starts in the 39-acre park on the sound side of NC 12: mowed lawns, clumps of maritime forest, and a saltwater pond with a boathouse and a small canal running out to Currituck Sound. It looks like a place built for lingering, and the game lets you.
Whalehead
Then the house nobody expects to find at the end of a beach road. Whalehead is twenty-one thousand square feet of Art Nouveau, painted a custard yellow with nearly black trim, under a steep roof of more than ten thousand hand-cut copper shingles. It went up between 1922 and 1925 as a hunting retreat, when this sound was thick with waterfowl and people with money came a long way to shoot them. The game works the outside of it, so there’s no tour to buy.
The Currituck Beach Lighthouse grounds
Every other tall lighthouse on this coast wears a painted pattern. This one is bare red brick, 162 feet of it, first lit in December 1875 — and why it was left that way is exactly the kind of question the walk is built around. You work the tower from the ground; climbing it is run separately by the lighthouse and isn’t part of the game.
The old village
Past the lighthouse the lanes narrow and the live oaks close in over them. This is the Corolla that was here before the rental houses: a one-room schoolhouse, and a chapel whose congregation formed in 1885 and was served for decades by circuit-riding preachers who came up the beach by horse and buggy or across the sound by boat. The buildings are small. What they have to say is not.
Back to the water
The loop brings you back toward the sound. Trails at the north end of the park run out to boardwalks over Currituck Sound, and the sound faces west — so start in the late afternoon and the last thing the walk hands you is the sunset.
What you need
- Start: Historic Corolla Park, 1100 Club Road, Corolla. Park there.
- Walking: a flat 1.5-mile loop, about two hours at an easy pace.
- When: any day, in daylight. Your team pass is good for 90 days, so there’s no time slot to book.
- Bring: a phone with location turned on, water, and bug spray in the warm months.
- Players: up to six. Run it off one phone so only the navigator has their face in a screen, or let everyone follow along on their own.
How the game works
- Buy a team pass. Your team link arrives by email within a few minutes; if it hasn’t landed in 10 minutes, check spam and promotions.
- Go to the start any day within 90 days and open the link when you are ready. There is no booking, no guide and nobody to meet.
- Each stop unlocks by GPS when you get there. Then come photo challenges, questions you answer from what is actually in front of you, and points.
- If your phone won’t share its location, the game lets you place yourself on the map by hand, so nobody gets stuck.
Play the Corolla Wild Goose Chase
A self-guided hunt of ours: $29 for the whole team, not per person, good any day for 90 days. Renting a 4x4 from Beach4x4, our rental company in Kill Devil Hills? Every rental includes a free hunt pass, and the link comes with your booking confirmation.
Get the team pass · $29Questions people ask
Is this a guided tour?
No. It is self-guided on your phone. There is no guide, no schedule and no meeting point; you start whenever you get there.
How long is the Corolla Wild Goose Chase?
A flat 1.5-mile loop that takes about two hours, longer if you stop to look around.
Do we need tickets for Whalehead or the lighthouse?
No. Every stop is outdoors on public ground. Touring Whalehead and climbing the lighthouse are separate, and neither is part of the game.
How many people does one pass cover?
One team of up to six players, on one phone or each on their own. Bringing two teams? Buy two passes.
What if our team link doesn’t arrive?
Give it 10 minutes and check spam and promotions, then email hello@obxmaps.com and we will sort it out.
Checked against the sources
Whalehead — its 1922 to 1925 construction, its size, colors and copper roof; the Currituck Beach Lighthouse — its height and first lighting in December 1875; the Corolla Chapel — its 1885 congregation and circuit-riding preachers, from its state historical marker; and the layout of Historic Corolla Park.
Every question in the game was checked against the actual sign, marker or building on site.
Images on this page are illustrations of the kind of thing you will see, not photographs of the exact spots. The title art is the hunt’s own.
Last checked: September 2026.