Things to Do in Manteo & Roanoke Island: Map & Guide

Roanoke Island is where the English story in America begins, and where it immediately goes missing. The colony planted here in 1587 — twenty years before Jamestown, thirty-three before Plymouth — had vanished by the time a relief ship got back, and nobody has ever settled what happened to it. Virginia Dare, born on this island on 18 August 1587 and the first child born in the Americas to English parents, was one of the people who disappeared.

The island has been saying that story out loud ever since. The Lost Colony has played on the shore where it happened nearly every summer since 1937, which makes it the longest-running outdoor symphonic drama in the country. A young actor called Andy Griffith joined the cast in 1947, worked up to playing Sir Walter Raleigh, married his co-star here in 1949, and came back to live on this island for the rest of his life.

Manteo itself wears all of that lightly: a few walkable blocks of shops, docks and a small lighthouse, with the heavyweight sites five minutes up the road. It is also the Outer Banks’ best answer to a windy day, a rainy day, or a day when somebody in the car is finished with sand. Manteo is the Dare County seat — the Dare inside the show’s Kildare — and Kildare Island, explained has the whole decode plus fifty-four things to do on the real coast. Everything below is on the map.

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Things to Do in Manteo

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site — 1401 National Park Dr. The site of the 1587 colony, and of a second story most visitors never hear: during the Civil War a Freedmen’s Colony of formerly enslaved people built a community on this ground, before Reconstruction had a name. The shaded grounds are worth the stop on their own. Check the National Park Service for current visitor center hours.

The Lost Colony plays at the Waterside Theatre next door — the colony’s own story, performed on the shore where it happened, every summer bar a handful since 1937. The 2026 season ran 4 June to 22 August and next year’s dates are announced each winter. It is open-air: bring bug spray, and check the theater’s weather policy before you drive over.

The Elizabethan Gardens — 1411 National Park Dr. Formal gardens on the sound, with statuary and a live oak dated to the colony era, meaning it was standing while all of this was going wrong. There is a find-the-fairies hunt for children that buys the adults a genuinely peaceful hour.

North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island — 374 Airport Rd. Entry is timed and the slots sell out in season, so book online before you make the drive. Inside: the Graveyard of the Atlantic shark habitat, and the STAR Center where injured sea turtles are rehabilitated.

Roanoke Island Festival Park — over the little bridge from the downtown waterfront. An interactive 16th-century settlement with costumed interpreters, and the home port of the Elizabeth II, a representational 16th-century English merchant ship from the 1585 Roanoke voyage. You can go aboard.

Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse — end of the downtown boardwalk, 104 Fernando St. A screw-pile light: a cottage on legs, screwed down into soft sound mud because there is nothing solid out there to build on. This one is a 2004 replica, and why it is a replica is the best short story on the island. The original stood from 1877 at the south end of Croatan Sound, was decommissioned in 1955, sold to a private buyer, and went over the side of a barge in rough water while he was moving it. Destroyed. The house you walk into is a copy — but the lens inside is real, a fourth-order Fresnel on loan from the Coast Guard, and it is lit every night. Free, daily 9 to 5, year round.

Wanchese — five miles down the road at the island’s south end, and worth the detour to see the other half of the place. Manteo and Wanchese are named for two Carolina Algonquians who sailed to England together in 1584 and came home with opposite conclusions about the visitors: Manteo stayed with the colonists, Wanchese broke with them. The towns have kept their namesakes’ characters ever since — Manteo has the shops and the theater, Wanchese has the boatyards and the fish houses and the trawlers actually going out. It lost its oldest one when Wanchese Fish Company closed in March 2024 after eighty-eight years.

Dare County Regional Airport — north end of the island, and where the sightseeing flights leave from. Barrier Island Aviation and OBX Airplanes both fly open-cockpit WACO biplanes from there — short hops over the island, up to hour-long runs past the Wright Brothers Memorial, Bodie Island Lighthouse and Oregon Inlet. Two people ride together in the front cockpit and the price is per flight rather than per person, with a combined weight limit, so ask when you book.

Where to Eat & Stay

Downtown Manteo puts its restaurants, coffee shops and inns into a few walkable waterfront blocks. Park once, wander, and finish at the lighthouse. Our full Outer Banks Restaurants guide covers the wider area.

Related OBX Guides

A short drive from the beaches and the central towns, and everything else is in Things to Do in the Outer Banks. For a genuinely wild day, head west to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge — black bears, and animals from the only wild red wolf population left on earth.